Diverging effects of nicotine on motor learning performance: Improvement in deprived smokers and attenuation in non-smokers.
Nicotine modulates cognition and neuroplasticity in smokers and non-smokers. A possible mechanism for its effect on learning and memory performance is its impact on long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD). As neuroplasticity is closely connected to learning processes, we aimed to explore the effect of nicotine in healthy, young smokers and non-smokers on performance of the serial reaction time task (SRTT), a sequential motor learning paradigm. 20 nicotine-deprived smokers and 20 non-smokers participated in the study and were exposed to nicotine or placebo medication. Deprived smokers under placebo medication displayed reduced performance in terms of reaction time and error rates compared to the non-smoking group. After application of nicotine, performance in smokers improved while it deteriorated in non-smokers. These results indicate a restituting effect of nicotine in smokers in terms of cognitive parameters. This sheds further light on the proposed mechanism of nicotine on learning processes, which might be linked to the addictive component of nicotine, the probability of relapse and thus needs also be addressed in cessation treatment.
['Grundey|J|J|', 'Amu|R|R|', 'Batsikadze|G|G|', 'Paulus|W|W|', 'Nitsche|M A|MA|']
D000328:Adult D005260:Female D005731:Ganglionic Stimulants D006801:Humans D007858:Learning D008297:Male D009043:Motor Activity D009538:Nicotine D011597:Psychomotor Performance D011930:Reaction Time D000074285:Smokers D016540:Smoking Cessation D055815:Young Adult
Nicotine Sequential motor learning Nicotine withdrawal