http://www.salon.com/2013/12/29/sciences%5Fobsession%5Fthe%5Fsearch%5Ffor%5Fa%5Fsmart%5Fpill/Interesting
Nicotine is the best cognitive enhancer?
A few quotes from the article I found interesting:
"That same study, like many others, found that other ingredients in tobacco smoke are necessary to amp up nicotine’s addictiveness. Those other chemical ingredients — things like acetaldehyde, anabasine, nornicotine, anatabine, cotinine, and myosmine — help to keep people hooked on tobacco. On its own, nicotine isn’t enough."
“The cognitive-enhancing effects of nicotine in a normal population are more robust than you get with any other agent. With Provigil, for instance, the evidence for cognitive benefits is nowhere near as strong as it is for nicotine.”
"at least nicotine certainly looks safe. And we’ve seen absolutely no withdrawal symptoms. There doesn’t seem to be any abuse liability whatsoever in taking nicotine by patch in nonsmokers. That’s reassuring.”
"Have published over a dozen studies showing that in animals and humans alike, nicotine administration temporarily improves visual attention and working memory."
"nicotine increases something called prospective memory, the ability to remember and implement a prior intention."
"the irony gets mad deep — the one purpose for which nicotine patches have proven futile is the very same one for which they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, sold by pharmacies over the counter, bought by consumers, and covered by many state Medicaid programs: quitting smoking."
Obviously I'm not going to start using nicotine now haha, I'd like to see some long term studies on addiction and adverse effects, but nonetheless, it's quite interesting.
e:
http://examine.com/supplements/Nicotine/http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine wow, very cool, thanks for posting.