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• Stanford researchers study alcohol, nicotine, Donepezil effects on pilots 

Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System have found that pilots who take nicotine or an Alzheimer's disease drug called donepezil fly better than those in a control group, while those who have consumed alcohol are impaired when flying.

Martin Mumenthaler, PhD, a senior research scientist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Medicine, analyzed results of previous trials done over a 10-year period on the effects of alcohol, nicotine and donepezil on pilots. The trials, conducted at the Stanford Aviation Safety Laboratory, focused on how the various drugs affected pilot skill in a flight simulator. Results appear in the July issue of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

In the nicotine trials, pilots were given either nicotine gum or a placebo before flying in a simulator that mimicked a single-engine propeller plane. . .

The findings have inspired additional research on nicotine and flying. Now that smoking is prohibited on most commercial flights, pilots who smoke have to endure without cigarettes. . .

The Aviation Safety Laboratory is now recruiting pilots who are smokers for a study on the effects of nicotine withdrawal on flight performance.

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