Meta-analysis of the acute effects of nicotine and smoking on human performance

By S. Heishman, B. Kleykamp, E. Singleton. Psychopharmacology, 2010

628 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Rationale and objectiveEmpirical studies indicate that nicotine enhances some aspects of attention and cognition, suggesting a role in the maintenance of tobacco dependence. The purpose of this review was to update the literature since our previous review (Heishman et al. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol 2:345–395, 1994) and to determine which aspects of human performance were most sensitive to the effects of nicotine and smoking.MethodsWe conducted a meta-analysis on the outcome measures of 41 double-blind, placebo-controlled laboratory studies published from 1994 to 2008. In all studies, nicotine was administered, and performance was assessed in healthy adult nonsmokers or smokers who were not tobacco-deprived or minimally deprived (≤2 h).ResultsThere were sufficient effect size data to conduct meta-analyses on nine performance domains, including motor abilities, alerting and orienting attention, and episodic and working memory. We found significant positive effects of nicotine or smoking on six domains: fine motor, alerting attention-accuracy and response time (RT), orienting attention-RT, short-term episodic memory-accuracy, and working memory-RT (effect size range = 0.16 to 0.44).ConclusionsThe significant effects of nicotine on motor abilities, attention, and memory likely represent true performance enhancement because they are not confounded by withdrawal relief. The beneficial cognitive effects of nicotine have implications for initiation of smoking and maintenance of tobacco dependence.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Molecular Biology, Physiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1042315f9dc147a3d1a7c2667f13da41ffaeb9b3

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

1. Richard J. Haier
2. Elliot A. Stein

In Molecular Biology

1. Richard J. Haier
2. D. Kennedy
3. Elliot A. Stein
4. E. Wightman

In Physiology

1. D. Kennedy
2. E. Wightman

Citations in the corpus

• Resting state functional connectivity in addiction: Lessons learned and a road ahead (2012, background): “This latter view derives from the cognitive enhancing effects observed in nicotine-naïve populations (Heishman et al., 2010) as well as evidence that nicotine suppresses the DMN activity in non-smokers (Tanabe et al.”
• The Neuroscience of Intelligence (2016, background): “The Internet has countless entries for IQ-boosting drugs, and there are many peerreviewed studies of cognitive enhancing effects on learning, memory, and attention for drugs like nicotine (Heishman et al., 2010).”
• Herbal extracts and phytochemicals: plant secondary metabolites and the enhancement of human brain function. (2011, background): “(78) meta-analyzed 50 methodologically adequate, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies that assessed the effects of nicotine administered via various methods in nondeprived smokers, minimally deprived smokers, or nonsmokers.”