Nicotine enhances antisaccade performance in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls.

What Was Tested

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

Thus, the researchers aimed to test both smoking and non-smoking patients as well as healthy controls in order to extend previous findings.

Why It Was Studied

Nicotine has been proposed to be a cognitive enhancer, particularly in schizophrenia patients.

So far, the published studies of nicotine effects on antisaccade performance in schizophrenia patients only tested participants who were deprived smokers.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 22 patients taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

Neither the patients nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) could be set against what happens without it.

Each person switched between Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

What Was Measured

So far, the published studies of nicotine effects on antisaccade performance in schizophrenia patients only tested participants who were deprived smokers.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Administration, Cutaneous, Analysis of Variance, Cotinine, Electrooculography, Nicotine, Nicotinic Agonists and Reaction Time.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in 22 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The publication is from 2013 (The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology), a journal based in England.

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