A double-blind placebo controlled experimental study of nicotine: I--effects on incentive motivation.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), published as a randomized controlled trial.

This study aimed to replicate earlier findings of abstinence-associated incentive motivation deficits in smokers and to determine whether these can be reversed with nicotine in the form of lozenge.

Participants completed various tests of incentive motivational functioning: a measure of subjective enjoyment, the Snaith-Hamilton pleasure scale (SHAPS); a simple card sorting task, the card arranging reward responsivity objective test (CARROT) with and without financial incentive; the modified emotional Stroop test; a cue-reactivity task; and a novel reaction time task to explore effects of signals of reward, the incentive motivational enhancement of response speed task.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Some participants received a placebo instead of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), giving a reference point.

One hundred forty-five smokers were each tested twice, once after receiving nicotine, and once after receiving placebo lozenge in counterbalanced order.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Motivation, Nicotine, Nicotinic Agonists, Reward, Smoking, Smoking Cessation and Substance Withdrawal Syndrome.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 2 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2006 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.