Niemegeers Peter, Dumont Glenn J H, Quisenaerts Charel, Morrens Manuel, Boonzaier Julia, Fransen Erik, de Bruijn Ellen R A, Hulstijn Wouter, Sabbe Bernard G C
Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Research Institute (CAPRI), Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Antwerp, Belgium; University Psychiatric Hospital Duffel, Stationsstraat 22C, 2570 Duffel, Belgium.
Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Research Institute (CAPRI), Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Antwerp, Belgium; University Psychiatric Hospital Duffel, Stationsstraat 22C, 2570 Duffel, Belgium.
Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2014 Jul;24(7):1015-23. doi: 10.1016/j.euroneuro.2014.03.011. Epub 2014 Apr 8.
Since cholinergic neurotransmission plays a major role in cognition, stimulation of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor may be a target for cognitive enhancement. While nicotine improves performance on several cognitive domains, results of individual studies vary. A possible explanation for these findings is that the effect of nicotine administration may be dependent on baseline cognitive function, where subjects with a suboptimal cognitive performance may benefit from nicotine, while subjects who already perform optimally may show a decline in performance after nicotinic stimulation. We conducted a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled crossover trial, examining the effects of placebo, 1, and 2mg of nicotine on cognition in young (n=16, age 18-30 years) and healthy elderly (n=16, age 60-75 years) subjects. We hypothesised that the elderly would benefit more from nicotine compared to young subjects, as normal ageing is associated with decreases in cognitive function. Attention, working memory, visual memory, information-processing speed, psychomotor function, stereotypy, and emotion recognition were assessed. Compared to the young volunteers, the elderly performed significantly worse on psychomotor function and emotion recognition in the placebo condition. Nicotine had no effect in the young volunteers and decreased performance on working memory and visual memory in the elderly. Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect of nicotine was dependent on baseline performance in both the groups, with subjects with lower baseline performance benefiting from nicotine administration, while those with higher baseline performance performed worse after nicotine administration. This suggests that subjects with lower cognitive performance, irrespective of age, may benefit from nicotine.
由于胆碱能神经传递在认知中起主要作用，刺激烟碱型乙酰胆碱受体可能是认知增强的一个靶点。虽然尼古丁能改善多个认知领域的表现，但个别研究的结果各不相同。对这些发现的一种可能解释是，尼古丁给药的效果可能取决于基线认知功能，认知表现欠佳的受试者可能从尼古丁中受益，而那些已经表现最佳的受试者在烟碱刺激后可能会出现表现下降。我们进行了一项双盲随机安慰剂对照交叉试验，研究安慰剂、1毫克和2毫克尼古丁对年轻（n = 16，年龄18 - 30岁）和健康老年人（n = 16，年龄60 - 75岁）受试者认知的影响。我们假设，与年轻受试者相比，老年人从尼古丁中获益更多，因为正常衰老与认知功能下降有关。评估了注意力、工作记忆、视觉记忆、信息处理速度、心理运动功能、刻板行为和情绪识别。与年轻志愿者相比，老年人在安慰剂条件下的心理运动功能和情绪识别表现明显更差。尼古丁对年轻志愿者没有影响，而在老年人中则降低了工作记忆和视觉记忆的表现。与我们的假设相反，尼古丁的效果在两组中均取决于基线表现，基线表现较低的受试者从尼古丁给药中获益，而基线表现较高的受试者在尼古丁给药后表现更差。这表明，认知表现较低的受试者，无论年龄大小，可能从尼古丁中受益。
