Study: Nicotine reduces attention capacity
NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 22 (UPI) --U.S. scientists have determined exposure to nicotine might diminish a person's attention capacity.

Yale University researchers led by Leslie Jacobsen found teenage smokers who were also exposed to nicotine before birth showed a dramatic reduction in attention capacities related to vision and hearing. The scientists also demonstrated male and female attention capacities are affected by the exposure in different ways.

Jacobsen's team determined girls who smoke and were subject to nicotine exposure in the womb performed most poorly in both visual and auditory attention tasks. In boys, nicotine exposure had a greater effect on auditory attention, suggesting brain regions involved in auditory attention might be more vulnerable to nicotine in males.

The researchers believe the gender-specific effects may result from differences in hormonal control of nicotine's actions.

The study appears in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

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http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/20070322-082351-1235r/

© Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Gender-Specific Effects of Prenatal and Adolescent Exposure to Tobacco Smoke on Auditory and Visual Attention.

Neuropsychopharmacology. 2007 March Volume 21

Jacobsen LK, Slotkin TA, Mencl WE, Frost SJ, Pugh KR.
[1] 1Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA [2] 2Department of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA [3] 3Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, USA.

Prenatal exposure to active maternal tobacco smoking elevates risk of cognitive and auditory processing deficits, and of smoking in offspring. Recent preclinical work has demonstrated a sex-specific pattern of reduction in cortical cholinergic markers following prenatal, adolescent, or combined prenatal and adolescent exposure to nicotine, the primary psychoactive component of tobacco smoke.

Given the importance of cortical cholinergic neurotransmission to attentional function, we examined auditory and visual selective and divided attention in 181 male and female adolescent smokers and nonsmokers with and without prenatal exposure to maternal smoking. Groups did not differ in age, educational attainment, symptoms of inattention, or years of parent education. A subset of 63 subjects also underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing an auditory and visual selective and divided attention task.

Among females, exposure to tobacco smoke during prenatal or adolescent development was associated with reductions in auditory and visual attention performance accuracy that were greatest in female smokers with prenatal exposure (combined exposure). Among males, combined exposure was associated with marked deficits in auditory attention, suggesting greater vulnerability of neurocircuitry supporting auditory attention to insult stemming from developmental exposure to tobacco smoke in males. Activation of brain regions that support auditory attention was greater in adolescents with prenatal or adolescent exposure to tobacco smoke relative to adolescents with neither prenatal nor adolescent exposure to tobacco smoke.

These findings extend earlier preclinical work and suggest that, in humans, prenatal and adolescent exposure to nicotine exerts gender-specific deleterious effects on auditory and visual attention, with concomitant alterations in the efficiency of neurocircuitry supporting auditory attention.

Neuropsychopharmacology advance online publication, 21 March 2007; doi:10.1038/sj.npp.1301398.

PMID: 17375135 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17375135