Nicotine and Cognition in Cognitively Normal Older Adults

I'm going to do the nicotine patches for my next stroke even though I have no clue on dosage.  Don't listen to me with no medical training. Is your doctor trained in the latest research? Say the last 20 years?

 

How is your doctor having your nicotine delivered? 

Too bad the nicotine gum got cancelled.

 

So I guess I'll have to do patches for my nicotine needs post stroke.

Nicotine Holds Promise for Stronger Stroke Recovery

 

Nicotine Patch Appears To Help Mild Cognitive Loss

 

Can nicotine protect the aging brain?

This Legal Drug Could Protect Brain From Ageing - Nicotine

 The latest here:

Nicotine and Cognition in Cognitively Normal Older Adults

Olivia Nop, Anna Senft Miller, Hannah Culver, Jenna Makarewicz and Julie A. Dumas^*

• Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, United States

The cholinergic system has been shown to be the primary neurotransmitter system which is responsible for the cognitive symptoms associated with dementia; its role in healthy non-demented older adults remains a gap in the literature. Understanding the effects of age-related functional changes on the nicotinic system will address this knowledge gap. As the older adult population grows and hence the importance of understanding cognitive changes that impact functional abilities and everyday life. In this article we examine the benefits of using nicotine as a method for improving cognition in non-demented healthy older adults which may have the potential for slowing neurodegeneration in aging. Furthermore, we discuss how nicotine can play a crucial role in maintaining cognitive abilities throughout normal cognitive aging.

Introduction

While Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and dementia continue to affect an increasing number of the older adult population, a majority of older adults will not be diagnosed with dementia. An Institute of Medicine report (Blazer et al., 2015) characterized the notable changes in cognition during aging that are not dementia yet still affect every day functioning and quality of life for older adults. There is a large body of research from cognitive psychology of aging demonstrating changes in processes like processing speed (Salthouse, 1996), attention (McDonough et al., 2019), working memory (Gazzaley et al., 2005), and executive functioning (Silver et al., 2011) that do not rise to the level of a dementia diagnosis yet have an impact on older adult lifestyles. There is also a growing literature (Phillips, 2017) on non-pharmacological attempts to improve cognition in aging including exercise (Falck et al., 2019), cognitive training (Toril et al., 2014), diet (Morris et al., 2015), and social interaction (Evans et al., 2018) and each method has its benefits and challenges. We suggest a pharmacological approach to influence cognition in older adults using the cholinergic agonist nicotine. If nicotine is shown to be beneficial for cognition, it can be combined with any of the non-pharmacological approaches mentioned above to improve quality of life for older adults. Research has suggested that nicotine may benefit cognitive functioning in older age (Gandelman et al., 2019), as nicotine has been shown to improve cognition in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; Newhouse et al., 2012), age associated memory impairment (White and Levin, 2004), and AD (White and Levin, 1999). However, there is limited knowledge about nicotine’s effects on normal cognitive aging; there have been few studies investigating the relationship between stimulation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) with nicotine and its effects on cognition in healthy older adults (Min et al., 2001; Niemegeers et al., 2014). We present information that offers potential mechanisms for how nicotine may play an important role in slowing normal cognitive changes in aging and suggest future studies to fill in the information gaps in the current knowledge.

Below, we first describe normal cognitive aging. Then, we describe the cholinergic system and its role in normal and pathological cognition. Next, we describe the literature on nicotinic stimulation and cognition in adults with and without cognitive impairment. Finally, we offer suggestions for future studies to examine the role of nAChR stimulation for enhancing cognition in healthy older adults.

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