Nicotine differentially modulates antisaccade eye-gaze away from emotional stimuli in nonsmokers stratified by pre-task baseline performance.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Studies indicate that nicotine enhances some aspects of attention and executive functioning and attenuates the attentional salience of emotionally negative distractors.

The purpose of this study was to assess whether nicotine can enhance executive control over prepotent responses in emotional contexts in nonsmokers and whether such enhancement is greater in individuals with low baseline performance (BP).

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults and adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as 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.

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

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) group a baseline to be compared against.

The antisaccade task (AST) measures the inhibition of the tendency to glance in the direction of the onset of a visual stimulus and thus is an index of control over prepotent responses.

Ten male and 14 female nonsmokers wore nicotine and placebo patches on counterbalanced days that included emotional picture primes and targets.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Attention, Emotions, Inhibition, Psychological, Neuropsychological Tests, Nicotine, Photic Stimulation and Psychomotor Performance.

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 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

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