Nicotine and Sensorimotor Replacement for Smoking in Smokers With Schizophrenia

Biological and Behavioral Mechanisms of Smoking in Schizophrenia

The objective of this study is to investigate the relative contributions of nicotine replacement and sensorimotor replacement (i.e., smoking denicotinized cigarettes) on abstinence-induced smoking urges, withdrawal-related negative affect, psychiatric symptoms, cognitive task performance and 90-min ad libitum usual-brand smoking behavior in smokers with schizophrenia and non-psychiatric smokers.

This study used a mixed between- and within-subjects design to investigate the separate and combined effects of sensorimotor replacement for smoking (very low nicotine content [VLNC] cigarettes vs. no cigarettes) and transdermal nicotine replacement (42 mg nicotine [NIC] vs. placebo [PLA] patches) in smokers with schizophrenia and control smokers without psychiatric illness. Each session contained a 5-h controlled administration period in which participants underwent the following conditions, in counterbalanced order: VLNC + NIC, VLNC + PLA, no cigarettes + NIC, no cigarettes + PLA, Usual Brand cigarettes + no patches. Next, participants completed measures of cigarette craving, nicotine withdrawal, smoking habit withdrawal, cigarette subjective effects, psychiatric symptoms and cognitive task performance followed by a 90-min period of ad libitum usual-brand smoking.

Inclusion Criteria:

• schizophrenia or no psychiatric illness
• 18 and older
• men and women
• cigarette smokers, 20-50 cigarettes per day
• would like to quit someday

Exclusion Criteria:

• medical conditions excluding transdermal nicotine replacement
• pregnancy or lactation