Trial reportPsychopharmacology2014
Acute effects of mecamylamine and varenicline on cognitive performance in non-smokers with and without schizophrenia.
Trial report in Psychopharmacology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT00455650 (Cognitive Effects of Mecamylamine and Varenicline in Schizophrenia), which is not on this map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Cognitive Effects of Mecamylamine and Varenicline in Schizophrenia
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Varenicline for cognitive impairment in people with schizophrenia: systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychopharmacology · 2020Pooled it
- Alpha-7 nicotinic agonists for cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders: A translational meta-analysis of rodent and human studies.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2017Pooled it
- Phase IIb Trial of an α7 Nicotinic Receptor Partial Agonist With and Without Nicotine Patch for Withdrawal-Associated Cognitive Deficits and Tobacco Abstinence.Journal of clinical psychopharmacology · 2018Trial
- Nicotinic modulation of salience network connectivity and centrality in schizophrenia.Journal of psychiatric research · 2017Trial
- Maintenance pharmacotherapy normalizes the relapse curve in recently abstinent tobacco smokers with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.Schizophrenia research · 2017Trial
- Varenicline Effects on Smoking, Cognition, and Psychiatric Symptoms in Schizophrenia: A Double-Blind Randomized Trial.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Pharmacological and Mechanistic Interventions for Cognitive Impairment Associated With Schizophrenia: A Review of Registered Clinical Trials.Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica · 2026Review
- Cholinergic Functioning, Cognition, and Anticholinergic Medication Burden in Schizophrenia.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023Review
- Exploring the interoceptive stimulus effects of nicotine and varenicline.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2019Article
- Predictors of tobacco abstinence in outpatient smokers with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder treated with varenicline and cognitive behavioral smoking cessation therapy.Addictive behaviors · 2017Article
- Targeting the schizophrenia genome: a fast track strategy from GWAS to clinic.Molecular psychiatry · 2015Article
- Nicotine effects in adolescence and adulthood on cognition and α₄β₂-nicotinic receptors in the neonatal ventral hippocampal lesion rat model of schizophrenia.Psychopharmacology · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleNicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) have been implicated in the pathophysiology of cognitive deficits in the domains of attention and memory in schizophrenia. While nicotinic agonists and antagonists have been proposed as smoking cessation aids, few comparisons have been made of these agents on cognitive performance in individuals with schizophrenia.
objectivesThis study investigated the acute effects of a nAChR antagonist, mecamylamine, and partial agonist, varenicline, on cognitive function in non-smokers with and without schizophrenia.
methodsSingle oral doses of mecamylamine 10 mg, varenicline 1 mg, and placebo were administered 1 week apart in random order to adults with schizophrenia (n = 30) and to healthy volunteers (n = 41) in a double-blind, crossover design. The primary outcome of interest was sustained attention as assessed with hit reaction time variability (HRT-SD) on the identical pairs continuous performance test (CPT-IP).
resultsMecamylamine worsened performance on CPT-IP HRT-SD, a measure of attention, compared to varenicline in both groups. Performance on mecamylamine was worse than performance on both placebo and varenicline on several additional measures of attention, including CPT-IP hit reaction time (HRT) and random errors at various levels of task difficulty. There was a treatment by diagnosis interaction, such that mecamylamine worsened performance on CPT-IP 2-digit HRT, 3-digit random errors, and 4-digit hit rate compared to placebo and varenicline in participants with schizophrenia; effects not observed in controls.
conclusionsThese findings support a role for nAChRs in attention and suggest that those with schizophrenia may be particularly sensitive to nAChR blockade.
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Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.