ArticleSchizophrenia research2018
Minimal effects of prolonged smoking abstinence or resumption on cognitive performance challenge the "self-medication" hypothesis in schizophrenia.
Article in Schizophrenia research, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Association Between Chronic Tobacco Smoking and Brain Alterations in Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Pooled it
- CDP-choline and galantamine, a personalized α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor targeted treatment for the modulation of speech MMN indexed deviance detection in healthy volunteers: a pilot study.Psychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- Smoking prevalence and correlates among inpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Psychiatric symptoms and intentions to quit smoking: How regularity and volume of cigarette consumption moderate the relationship.Tobacco induced diseases · 2023Article
- Demographics, clinical characteristics and cognitive symptoms of heavy smokers and non-heavy smokers in Chinese male patients with chronic schizophrenia.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2022Article
- The pillars of health: influence of multiple lifestyle behaviors on body mass index and depressive symptoms in adult twins.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Review
- An Exploration of Smoking Patterns Among People with Serious Mental Illness Attending an Outpatient Clinic in Qatar.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2022Article
- Smoking as a Common Modulator of Sensory Gating and Reward Learning in Individuals with Psychotic Disorders.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Association of cigarette smoking with cognitive impairment in male patients with chronic schizophrenia.Psychopharmacology · 2020Article
- Nicotine Self-administration Is Not Increased in the Methylazoxymethanol Acetate Rodent Model of Schizophrenia.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2020Article
- Additive Effect of Cigarette Smoking on Gray Matter Abnormalities in Schizophrenia.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
One prominent, long-standing view is that individuals with schizophrenia smoke cigarettes more than the general population to "self-medicate" cognitive deficits and other symptoms. This study tested the self-medication hypothesis by examining the effects of smoking abstinence and resumption on cognition in patients with schizophrenia. Nicotine-dependent smokers with schizophrenia (n=26) were trained on a cognitive battery and then hospitalized to achieve and maintain confirmed abstinence from smoking for ~1 week. Cognition was tested while smoking as usual (baseline), one day after smoking cessation (early abstinence), ~1 week later (extended abstinence), and within ~3 weeks of resuming smoking (resumption). The test battery included measures of processing speed, attention, conflict resolution, verbal memory, working memory, verbal fluency, and executive function to evaluate multiple cognitive domains affected by schizophrenia. Positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, depressive symptoms, and dyskinesia were also measured at baseline and after prolonged abstinence. There were no significant changes in global cognitive test performance with smoking cessation, abstinence, or resumption. There were small decreases in a measure of processing speed and delayed verbal recall with abstinence, but these findings failed to survive adjustments for multiple comparisons. Surprisingly, in this within subject "On-Off-Off-On" design, there were no significant effects of early or prolonged abstinence from smoking on cognitive and behavioral measures in smokers with schizophrenia. The results of this study challenge the widely held "self-medication" hypothesis of smoking and schizophrenia, question the extent of pro-cognitive effects of smoking and nicotine in schizophrenia, and support encouraging smoking cessation in schizophrenia.
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