Acute administration of nicotine does not enhance cognitive functions

Chronic smokers often claim that smoking improves their cognitive abilities, such as concentration. However, scientific evidence to support this claim is scarce. Previous studies gave inconclusive results, and some of them had significant methodological flaws. Therefore, the aim of this study was to test whether smoking a single cigarette affects performance across several cognitive domains. It included a group of 22 occasional smokers aged 19-29 years. Attention, working memory, and visuospatial reasoning were assessed using a within-subjects design with a control setting. There were two separate testing sessions two days apart. Half the group started with experimental and the other half with control setting. In the experimental setting, the participants completed the first block of tasks, smoked one cigarette (with a nicotine yield of 0.5 mg), and then completed the second block of tasks. In the control setting, the procedure was the same, except that the participants had a glass of water instead of a cigarette. Repeated measures ANOVA showed no significant effects of cigarette smoking on either reaction time rates or accuracy on any of the three cognitive domains. These results suggest that, at least among young, occasional smokers, smoking does not affect cognition and the claims of its improvement are probably a result of some sort of cognitive bias.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2019

Erschienen:

2019

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:70

Enthalten in:

Arhiv za higijenu rada i toksikologiju - 70(2019), 4 vom: 01. Dez., Seite 273-282

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Grus, Andrea [VerfasserIn]
Hromatko, Ivana [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

6M3C89ZY6R
Attention
Journal Article
Mental rotation
Nicotine
Smoking
Working memory

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 23.10.2020

Date Revised 23.10.2020

published: Print

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.2478/aiht-2019-70-3257

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM312015682