Sexually dimorphic effects of acute nicotine administration on arousal and visual-spatial ability in non-smoking human volunteers

Abstract

. (2007) "Sexually dimorphic effects of acute nicotine administration on arousal and visual-spatial ability in nonsmoking human volunteers" Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, 86 (4),[758][759][760][761][762][763][764][765] http://epublications.bond.edu.au/hss_pubs/336 The effect of an acute administration of nicotine on arousal and visual-spatial ability in healthy non-smoking participants was investigated. Healthy adult volunteers with a mean age of 19.98 years received a transdermal nicotine or placebo patch prior to completing a water level task and two mental rotation tasks while concurrent psychophysiological recordings were taken. Nicotine administration showed a sexually dimorphic effect on arousal (skin conductance level and heart rate). Evidence of superior performance in males compared to females was found in reaction time and accuracy measures for the visual-spatial tasks. However, performance reflected the interaction between sex and nicotine. Nicotine slowed reaction times in the mental rotation tasks more extensively in females than males. Nicotine also reduced confidence in performance during the water level task in males, but not females. The effects of nicotine on visual-spatial ability may reflect the interactive effects of sex and changes in arousal levels induced by nicotine administration.

Sex Differences in Verbal and Visual-Spatial Tasks under Different Hemispheric Visual-Field Presentation Conditions

“…In accord with H2, it had been predicted that increasing the difficulty level would yield better performance for men as has been found with other types of visual-spatial tasks (e.g., Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995;Geary & DeSoto, 2001;Neumann et al, 2007). Increasing task difficulty did produce a significant effect (i.e., longer RTs), but like Algan, et al (1997), responses on the visual-spatial task were faster than for the verbal task.…”

“…Tasks that tap cognitive functions can be examined in experiments wherein variables such as task type (e.g., verbal vs visual-spatial), task difficulty, and brain laterality are manipulated systematically, and the effects of these manipulations observed on dependent variables such as reaction time (RT), accuracy of response, or psychophysiological variables such as skin resistance level (SRL), or heart rate (HR) (cf. Neumann, Lipp, & Siddle, 1997;Lipp, Neumann, & McHugh, 2003;Neumann, Fitzgerald, Furedy, & Boyle, 2007;Furedy, 2008;Geus & Neumann, 2008).…”

Gender-Role Differences in Spatial Ability: A Meta-Analytic Review

“…When men and women are compared at the population level, reviews find no evidence of gender differences in general intelligence (Halpern & Lamay, 2000;Neisser, et al, 1996). However, researchers have frequently observed gender differences in more specific components of cognitive ability (Boyle, Neumann, Furedy, & Westbury, 2010a, 2010bNeumann, Fitzgerald, Furedy, & Boyle, 2007;Neumann, Sturm, Boyle, & Furedy, 2010). The size of such differences ranges differences in spatial, verbal, and quantitative reasoning in adolescence predicted educational and vocational outcomes two decades later.…”

Nicotine-induced acute hyperactivity is mediated by dopaminergic system in a sexually dimorphic manner

“…Sexual dimorphism in nicotine responses has been widely observed across species. In humans, upon an acute administration of nicotine, shorter reaction time and more accurate measurement in the visual-spatial tasks were detected in male when compared to female (Neumann et al, 2007). In addition, rhesus monkeys also showed sexual differences in a memory-related task after low-dose nicotine-intake (Buccafusco et al, 1999).…”