The basis for the research was the known effects of nicotine on the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and the aim of the research was to provide evidence at the human level that nicotine, by enhancing beta-catenin signaling cholinergic function, would improve human attention.1,2 The research showed that nicotine administered via smoking was capable of improving performance on

visual and auditory vigilance tasks,1 the rapid visual information processing task,54,55 and the digit vigilance Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical task.56 Further research showed that improvements on the rapid visual information processing task could be seen puff by puff,57 that higher-nicotine-yield cigarettes improve performance more than Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical lower ones,54,58 that the ability to detect the targets was improved together with the speed with which the targets were detected, and that the latency of the evoked potential to the targets was shortened by the same amount as the latency of the response was reduced.5 A review of 12 years of this research illustrated the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical robustness of these findings: “Every nicotine-containing cigarette we have studied improves performance. Improvements occur irrespective of the duration of testing, the speed of presentation of the digits, the density of targets, whether or

not subjects smoke while performing, whether or not they are filmed, whether or not electrocortical activity is measured in another laboratory, and whether testing is carried out in the morning or afternoon.”59 This work has provided valuable information on the pharmacological basis of the smoking habit.60 As the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical research was conducted in healthy young volunteers, it demonstrated that enhancements to cognitive function can be detected in this population.

As convincing as the findings were, it was still necessary to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that they were due Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to nicotine. Thus, nicotine was administered in tablet form in various studies. These tablets were found to improve performance on the vigilance task61 and on the rapid visual information processing task.62 Importantly, the improvements in vigilance occurred in smokers and nonsmokers, and on the rapid visual information processing task nicotine tablets improved the speed and accuracy of nonsmokers. already This work has been widely replicated in other laboratories (for reviews, see references 58 and 63). Of particular interest are improvements in rapid information processing seen with nicotine gum64-66 and with a nicotine inhaler.67 This body of work identified that, improvements in normal cognitive function could be produced by pharmacological agents, and showed that computerized tasks were particularly suitable for identifying such improvements, notably those in accuracy and speed. It also helped establish the role of the cholinergic system in human attention.