Ceballos Natalie A, Tivis Rick, Lawton-Craddock Andrea, Nixond Sara Jo
Department of Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota School of Medicine, Duluth, 55812-3031, USA.
Subst Use Misuse. 2006;41(3):265-81. doi: 10.1080/10826080500409076.
Cigarette smoking is prevalent among alcoholics and illicit substance abusers. However, the potentially confounding effect of nicotine on studies of cognition in detoxified substance users has rarely been addressed. In the current study of 87 participants, behavioral and electrophysiological indices of cognitive efficiency were measured in tobacco smokers from four groups: alcoholics, illicit stimulant abusers, concurrent abusers, and control subjects. Data were collected from 2001 to 2003. We hypothesized that acute nicotine administration would modify cognitive deficits in alcoholics and illicit stimulant abusing groups. An adaptation of the Rapid Visual Information Processing task was administered after stabilization of nicotine levels via a high- or low-dose transdermal nicotine patch. Across groups, increased nicotine dose was associated with decreased reaction time (p = .03). A group x nicotine dose interaction trend was noted in which increased nicotine was associated with increased correct responding within the alcoholic group (p = .02). No significant differences in electrophysiology were observed. These results suggest that nicotine may modify cognitive efficiency in alcoholics and illicit stimulant abusers, a concept with relevance to both the design of experimental work and the treatment of alcohol and illicit stimulant dependence. Further work is needed to determine whether this effect predominantly reflects facilitation of cognition function or alleviation of nicotine withdrawal.
吸烟在酗酒者和非法药物滥用者中很普遍。然而，尼古丁对戒毒者认知研究的潜在混杂效应很少得到探讨。在当前这项针对87名参与者的研究中，对四组吸烟者的认知效率行为和电生理指标进行了测量：酗酒者、非法兴奋剂滥用者、同时滥用者和对照组。数据收集于2001年至2003年。我们假设急性给予尼古丁会改善酗酒者和非法兴奋剂滥用组的认知缺陷。在通过高剂量或低剂量透皮尼古丁贴片使尼古丁水平稳定后，进行了快速视觉信息处理任务的适应性测试。在所有组中，尼古丁剂量增加与反应时间缩短相关（p = 0.03）。观察到组×尼古丁剂量的交互作用趋势，即酗酒组中尼古丁增加与正确反应增加相关（p = 0.02）。未观察到电生理方面的显著差异。这些结果表明，尼古丁可能改善酗酒者和非法兴奋剂滥用者的认知效率，这一概念与实验工作的设计以及酒精和非法兴奋剂依赖的治疗都相关。需要进一步的研究来确定这种效应主要是反映了对认知功能的促进还是对尼古丁戒断的缓解。
