Acute effect of nicotine on non-smokers: II. MLRs and 40-Hz responses

This paper is the second in a series of three investigating the role of cholinergic mechanisms in the auditory system by assessing the acute effects of nicotine, an acetylcholinomimetic drug, on aggregate responses within the auditory pathway. In a single-blind procedure, auditory responses were obtained from 20 normal-hearing, non-smokers (10 male) under two conditions (nicotine, placebo). The effects of nicotine on central, mesogenous responses of the auditory system (middle latency and 40-Hz responses) are described in this second paper. Results indicated that transdermal administration of nicotine to non-smokers does significantly affect the central, neural transmission of acoustic information. Na-Pa amplitude and Nb latency of the middle latency response and latency measures of the 40-Hz response were acutely altered by the presence of nicotine.