Acute nicotine alteration of sensory memory impairment in smokers with schizophrenia.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

To utilize the MMN to compare auditory sensory memory in minimally tobacco-deprived (3 hours) patients and matched tobacco-deprived smoking controls and to assess the effects of acute nicotine on MMN-indexed sensory memory processing in the patients.

Why It Was Studied

Patients with schizophrenia have a high rate of cigarette smoking and also exhibit profound deficits in sensory processing, which may in part be ameliorated by the acute actions of smoke-inhaled nicotine.

The mismatch negativity (MMN), a preattentive event-related potential index of auditory sensory memory, is diminished in schizophrenia.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

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

As a double-blind Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

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

Event-related potentials were recorded in 2 auditory oddball paradigms, one involving tone frequency changes (frequency MMN) and one involving tone duration changes (duration MMN).

Twelve smokers with schizophrenia and twelve control smokers.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acoustic Stimulation, Auditory Perception, Memory Disorders, Nicotine, Schizophrenia and Smoking.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Results are reported in around 4 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2010 (Journal of clinical psychopharmacology), a journal based in United States.

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