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Visual-spatial attention in alcoholics and illicit stimulant abusers: effects of nicotine replacement.

Ceballos NA, Tivis R, Lawton-Craddock A, Nixon SJ

Alcohol Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, 263 Farmington Avenue, MC-2103, Farmington, CT 06030-2103, USA. ceballos@psychiatry.uchc.edu

Reports of alcohol or illicit drug-related cognitive impairments have frequently disregarded the potentially confounding effects of smoking status and nicotine withdrawal on these measures. This study addressed this issue by measuring visual-spatial attention via an adaptation of the Posner paradigm in three groups of tobacco smokers: controls without a history of alcoholism or illicit drug use (n=27; 20 male), chronic alcoholics (n=22; 18 male), and illicit stimulant abusers (n=36; 21 male). Throughout testing, nicotine levels were stabilized by the double-blind administration of a high (14 or 21 mg) or low (7 mg) dose transdermal nicotine patch. A significant effect of group was observed for number of correct responses to restriction trials (F=5.48, 2/79 df; p=.006). Performance was normalized in the illicit stimulant group, and alcoholic participants exhibited superior performance relative to both illicit stimulant abusers (p=.002) and controls (p=.01). These findings support the hypothesis that nicotine may have a compensatory or normalizing effect on attentional functions in substance abusers. Whether these results reflect the central nervous system-activating effects of nicotine or merely alleviation of nicotine withdrawal is a topic of ongoing research.

Published 21 December 2004 in Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry, 29(1): 97-107.
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