Nicotine-induced activation of caudate and anterior cingulate cortex in response to errors in schizophrenia.

What Was Tested

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

Few studies have investigated the effects of nicotine on cognitive control.

Who Took Part

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

Participants with schizophrenia (n = 13) and healthy controls (n = 12) participated in a randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover study of the effects of transdermal nicotine on cognitive control.

For each drug condition, participants underwent fMRI while performing the stop signal task where participants attempt to inhibit prepotent responses to "go (motor activation)" signals when an occasional "stop (motor inhibition)" signal appears.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover and pilot study.

Because people in this Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

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.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study would be practical.

Error processing was evaluated by comparing "stop error" trials (failed response inhibition) to "go" trials.

Resting-state fMRI data were collected prior to the task.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Attention, Case-Control Studies, Caudate Nucleus, Cognition, Gyrus Cinguli, Inhibition, Psychological and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Anterior cingulate, Error, Functional magnetic resonance imaging and Schizophrenia.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover 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 2018 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

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