The overall goal of this proposal is to examine nicotine effects on cognition in non-smoking adults. It has been suggested that positive reinforcing effects of nicotine include improved cognitive performance. Attention, the ability to differentially process simultaneous sources of information, is one cognitive faculty reportedly enhanced by nicotine.
The specific aims are: 1) to examine nicotine's behavioral effects on attention and 2) to examine nicotine's electrophysiological effects on attention. Behavioral effects to be examined include nicotine improvement of reaction times on three cognitive tests of attention. The three experiments will examine whether nicotine improvement is due to faster attentional shifting, the selective speeding of components of each attentional shift, or an expansion of a subject's attended field of view. Electrophysiological measures include electroencephalography (EEG), which will be used to determine if nicotine improvement of RTs is partly due to non-specific effects on alertness. Amplitude changes in event-related potentials (ERPs) will be used to examine if faster attentional shifting or an expanded field of view might also underlie improved behavioral performance.
| Griesar, William S; Zajdel, Daniel P; Oken, Barry S (2002) Nicotine effects on alertness and spatial attention in non-smokers. Nicotine Tob Res 4:185-94 |
