Neural effects of acute nicotinic treatment on visual spatial attention in non-smokers

Enhanced cortical cholinergic signaling associated with nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) stimulation has been linked with pro-cognitive actions in a variety of performance domains, including attentional tasks. Improvements in stimulus selection with the nAChR agonist nicotine have been reported but its effects on visual spatial selective attention are unclear. Employing a double-blind, placebo-controlled design, this study examined the acute actions of nicotine (6 mg) in 24 non-smokers performing a visual search task of spatial attention that was probed with behavioral performance measures and the N2pc component of the event-related potentials (ERPs), which served as a neural index of spatial attentional selection. Nicotine did not affect behavioral performance indices. In high symptomatic subjects (as indexed by greater increases in heart rate post-administration), nicotine was associated with an N2pc amplitude enhancement while in low symptomatic individuals it was associated with an N2pc difference amplitude decrease. Nicotine modulation of the ERP marker of spatial attentional selection corroborates in general the attentional effects of nAChR agonists and extends these properties to include altered selective mechanisms during visual spatial processing.