Nicotine may enhance attention and working memory in recovering alcoholics

* Alcoholics in early recovery tend to have impaired cognitive functioning.
* Nicotine is known to have beneficial effects under certain circumstances.
* New findings show that nicotine patches may enhance cognitive functioning among newly recovering alcoholics with a history of smoking.

Detoxified alcoholics in the early stages of recovery tend to have impaired cognitive functioning. Many alcoholics also smoke, and nicotine is known to have enhancing effects on attentional processes. New findings indicate that nicotine patches can enhance cognitive function among newly recovering alcoholics with a history of smoking.

Results are published in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

"The majority of newly recovering alcoholics, between 50 and 85 percent, demonstrate significant problems in a wide array of tasks including visual-spatial, perceptual motor, learning and memory, attention/vigilance and abstracting and problem-solving," said Sara Jo Nixon, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Florida and corresponding author for the study. "Although these deficits often fail to reach levels of 'clinical impairment,' they represent a subtle, mild dysfunction when compared with community controls."

"There is a rather large body of literature supporting the beneficial effects of nicotine under certain circumstances," noted Edith V. Sullivan, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. "While smoking has many known untoward effects on numerous organs of the body, nicotine can have positive effects. Indeed, a recent study from the California Parkinson's Disease Institute indicated that nicotine adjunctive treatment with anti-Parkinsonian medication reduced tremor. Other studies have noted that patients with schizophrenia who are treated with certain antipsychotic medication have reduced motor side-effects by smoking cigarettes."

Nixon agreed. "The literature on acute administration of nicotine in both animals and humans strongly suggests that nicotine is a cognitive enhancer," she said. "The cognitive benefit is often observed in studies where non-smokers are administered nicotine. Furthermore, it appears that this effect is most effectively achieved through nicotine's effects on attention processes. However, when considering the potentially positive effects of nicotine, it is critical that we separate the effects of nicotine from those associated with smoking or other tobacco use."

Nixon and her colleagues examined two groups, ranging from 21 to 59 years of age: both groups - alcoholics (n=28) and community 'controls' (n=27) - were randomly assigned to two doses of the transdermal nicotine patch, Nicoderm CQ, low (7 mg.) and high (21 mg. for men, 14 mg. for women). Participants were then given a battery of neurocognitive tests to determine the differential effects of the different nicotine doses on attentional efficiency.