Nicotine. Findings from both human and animal studies have indicated that acute administration of nicotine can improve cognitive performance (particularly tasks that require attention), short-term episodic memory and prospective memory task performance. Chronic usage of low-dose nicotine in animals has been found to increase the number of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) and improve performance on learning and memory tasks.[27][28][29] Short-term nicotine treatment, utilising nicotine skin patches, have shown that it may be possible to improve cognitive performance in a variety of groups such as normal non-smoking adults, Alzheimer’s disease patients, schizophrenics, and adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.[30] Similarly, evidence suggests that smoking improves visuospatial working memory impairments in schizophrenic patients, possible explaining the high rate of tobacco smoking found in people with schizophrenia.[31] However, evidence suggests that low doses of nicotine facilitate memory and high doses have no significant effect or may impair memory.[27]
