Adler L E, Hoffer L D, Wiser A, Freedman R
Department of Psychiatry, Denver VA Medical Center, CO.
Am J Psychiatry. 1993 Dec;150(12):1856-61. doi: 10.1176/ajp.150.12.1856.
Because many schizophrenic patients are heavy smokers, it has been suggested that nicotine normalizes some neuronal deficit involved in their illness. Schizophrenic subjects have various difficulties with maintenance of attention and selective processing of sensory information. One defect in sensory gating in schizophrenia has been characterized by recording auditory evoked potentials. Most normal subjects have a decrease in the evoked response to the second of two closely paired stimuli, whereas most schizophrenic subjects do not. The aim of this study was to determine whether smoking normalizes this deficit in auditory sensory gating in schizophrenia.
Changes in auditory sensory gating in response to smoking cigarettes were studied in 10 smokers without psychiatric illness and 10 schizophrenic smokers. Both groups were asked to abstain from smoking from 11:00 p.m. until 8:00 a.m. the next morning, when their auditory evoked responses to pairs of clicks were recorded. The ability to gate sensory information is reflected in a decrease in the P50 wave amplitude in response to the second of the two stimuli. After baseline recordings, the subjects smoked as much as they wished, and then two postsmoking recordings were performed.
The schizophrenic patients had a marked but brief improvement in P50 auditory gating immediately after smoking, whereas P50 gating for the normal smokers was slightly impaired.
This study suggests that cigarette smoking can transiently normalize the impairment of auditory sensory gating in schizophrenic patients.
由于许多精神分裂症患者是重度吸烟者，有人提出尼古丁可使与该疾病相关的某些神经元缺陷恢复正常。精神分裂症患者在维持注意力和选择性处理感觉信息方面存在各种困难。精神分裂症感觉门控的一个缺陷已通过记录听觉诱发电位得以表征。大多数正常受试者对两个紧密配对刺激中的第二个刺激的诱发反应会降低，而大多数精神分裂症患者则不会。本研究的目的是确定吸烟是否能使精神分裂症患者听觉感觉门控的这种缺陷恢复正常。
对10名无精神疾病的吸烟者和10名精神分裂症吸烟者进行了研究，观察吸烟对听觉感觉门控的影响。两组均被要求从晚上11点至次日上午8点戒烟，在此期间记录他们对成对咔哒声的听觉诱发反应。感觉信息门控能力通过对两个刺激中第二个刺激的P50波幅降低来反映。在进行基线记录后，受试者想吸多少就吸多少，然后进行两次吸烟后的记录。
精神分裂症患者吸烟后立即出现P50听觉门控有显著但短暂的改善，而正常吸烟者的P50门控略有受损。
本研究表明，吸烟可使精神分裂症患者听觉感觉门控的损害暂时恢复正常。
