Jump to full article: MedWire News (uk), 2009-06-30
Author: Ingrid Grasmo
Intro: Study results show that cigarette smoking has a positive effect on sensorimotor gating in patients with schizophrenia, improving the prepulse inhibition (PPI) deficit of the startle response to levels comparable to those seen in healthy individuals.
“These findings have significant implications for understanding vulnerability to tobacco dependence in schizophrenia, which may lead to the development of more effective treatments for PPI deficits and tobacco dependence in this population,” write Tony George (University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and co-authors in the journal Schizophrenia Research.
The authors studied PPI of the startle response as a function of smoking status and schizophrenia diagnosis in smokers with schizophrenia (n=14), non-smokers with schizophrenia (n=15), control smokers (n=11), and control non-smokers (n=10).
The authors found the smokers with schizophrenia had comparable levels of PPI – as seen by significant differences in the peak onset – to control smokers and non-smokers (33.0, 28.5, and 39.1 ms, respectively). Significantly higher levels of PPI were seen in smokers with schizophrenia than schizophrenia nonsmokers (peak onset = 33.0 vs 14.3 ms).
Furthermore, at all prepulse to pulse intervals (30, 60, and 120 ms), non-smokers with schizophrenia had an approximate 50% reduction in PPI compared with control non-smokers.
The study results therefore suggest that acute smoking to produce smoking satiation is associated with apparent normalization of PPI deficits in patients with schizophrenia.
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