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Rick Tivis

Publications and source records attributed to Rick Tivis.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Nicotine and cognitive efficiency in alcoholics and illicit stimulant abusers: implications of smoking cessation for substance users in treatment.

Cigarette smoking is prevalent among alcoholics and illicit substance abusers. However, the potentially confounding effect of nicotine on studies of cognition in detoxified substance users has rarely been addressed. In the current study of 87 participants, behavioral and electrophysiological indices of cognitive efficiency were measured in tobacco smokers from four groups: alcoholics, illicit stimulant abusers, concurrent abusers, and control subjects. Data were collected from 2001 to 2003. We hypothesized that acute nicotine administration would modify cognitive deficits in alcoholics and illicit stimulant abusing groups. An adaptation of the Rapid Visual Information Processing task was administered after stabilization of nicotine levels via a high- or low-dose transdermal nicotine patch. Across groups, increased nicotine dose was associated with decreased reaction time (p = .03). A group x nicotine dose interaction trend was noted in which increased nicotine was associated with increased correct responding within the alcoholic group (p = .02). No significant differences in electrophysiology were observed. These results suggest that nicotine may modify cognitive efficiency in alcoholics and illicit stimulant abusers, a concept with relevance to both the design of experimental work and the treatment of alcohol and illicit stimulant dependence. Further work is needed to determine whether this effect predominantly reflects facilitation of cognition function or alleviation of nicotine withdrawal.

Administration, Cutaneous↗
PubMed2004

Visual-spatial attention in alcoholics and illicit stimulant abusers: effects of nicotine replacement.

Reports of alcohol or illicit drug-related cognitive impairments have frequently disregarded the potentially confounding effects of smoking status and nicotine withdrawal on these measures. This study addressed this issue by measuring visual-spatial attention via an adaptation of the Posner paradigm in three groups of tobacco smokers: controls without a history of alcoholism or illicit drug use (n=27; 20 male), chronic alcoholics (n=22; 18 male), and illicit stimulant abusers (n=36; 21 male). Throughout testing, nicotine levels were stabilized by the double-blind administration of a high (14 or 21 mg) or low (7 mg) dose transdermal nicotine patch. A significant effect of group was observed for number of correct responses to restriction trials (F=5.48, 2/79 df; p=.006). Performance was normalized in the illicit stimulant group, and alcoholic participants exhibited superior performance relative to both illicit stimulant abusers (p=.002) and controls (p=.01). These findings support the hypothesis that nicotine may have a compensatory or normalizing effect on attentional functions in substance abusers. Whether these results reflect the central nervous system-activating effects of nicotine or merely alleviation of nicotine withdrawal is a topic of ongoing research.

Administration, Cutaneous↗
PubMed2003

Substance abuse-related P300 differences in response to an implicit memory task.

The current study examined electrophysiological measures of cognitive efficiency in alcoholics and controls using a negative priming paradigm derived from DeSchepper and Treisman (J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cog. 22 (1996) 27). In this task, sets of novel shapes were presented: Two overlapping green and red shapes on the left and a single white shape on the right. Participants were instructed to ignore the red shape, but to determine whether the green shape was the same as or different from the white shape. On primed trials, previously red (to be ignored; i.e., irrelevant) shapes became green (relevant) shapes in a second component of the task. Participants who were capable of ignoring irrelevant stimuli were expected to experience more difficulty in the primed condition. Therefore, we predicted that, if alcohol-related impairment in cognitive efficiency is due to inability to respond "appropriately" (i.e., ignore irrelevant stimuli), alcoholics would experience less negative priming than normal controls. Both amplitude and latency of the P300 component of the event-related potential were measured in response to each trial condition. Using a 2 x 2 (group x condition) ANOVA with repeated conditions, a significant pattern of group x condition interactions was observed at right frontal, F4 (p=.05) and central parietal, Pz (p=.03) electrode sites on measures of P300 amplitude. A significant group x condition latency interaction was observed at the central parietal electrode, Pz (p=.006). Overall, controls exhibited increased P300 amplitude and latency in response to negatively primed trials. As predicted, alcoholics did not demonstrate this pattern, a finding consistent with alcohol-related cognitive inefficiency.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Cognitive efficiency in stimulant abusers with and without alcohol dependence.

BACKGROUND: Although previous studies have found stimulant (i.e., cocaine, methamphetamine) abusers and alcoholics to have neuropsychological deficits, research examining which cognitive abilities are most affected by concurrent exposure to these substances is lacking. To address this issue, detoxified men and women who met criteria for dependence of (a) alcohol only (ALC) (n = 15); (b) stimulants only (STIM) (n = 15); and (c) both alcohol and stimulants (A/STIM) (n = 15) were compared with age- and education-matched community controls (n = 15). METHODS: Tasks that measured visual spatial skills, problem-solving and abstraction, short-term memory, cognitive flexibility, and gross motor speed were administered to participants. For each test, both speed and accuracy were assessed and an efficiency ratio (accuracy/time) was derived. Based on an average of these efficiency ratios, an overall performance index of cognitive efficiency was obtained. RESULTS: Overall, controls performed more efficiently than all other groups. However, they were statistically significantly better only in relation to the A/STIM and STIM groups (p < 0.01). Individual comparisons revealed that the ALC group performed significantly better than the STIM group, although the ALC group did not differ from either the control or A/STIM groups (p </= 0.05). This pattern of results was relatively consistent across the individual subtests of problem-solving/abstraction, short-term memory, and cognitive flexibility. CONCLUSIONS: As expected, substance abuse was associated with cognitive inefficiency. More importantly, these findings suggest that the cognitive effects of chronic stimulant abuse are not additive with those of alcohol abuse. That is, singly addicted stimulant abusers demonstrated similar or greater neurocognitive impairments than individuals who abuse alcohol and stimulants concurrently. The reason for this pattern is speculative but may be attributed to alcohol's opposing actions on cerebrovascular effects brought on by stimulant abuse.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Semantic processing in alcoholics with and without antisocial symptomatology.

OBJECTIVE: Chronic alcoholics with a comorbid diagnosis of antisocial personality (ASP) symptomatology often exhibit early onset, severe course, and poor treatment outcomes. In addition, antisocial characteristics have been associated with a variety of cognitive deficits, including abnormalities of semantic processing, a deficit also found in alcoholics. Using the N400 task, this study investigated whether comorbid ASP symptomatology in alcoholics and community controls contributes to deficits in cognitive efficiency. METHOD: The N400 component of the event-related potential was elicited in detoxified alcoholics (n = 71; 56 male) and community controls (n = 36; 22 female) by sentences with congruent, related/incongruent or unrelated/incongruent terminal words. Difference waveforms were derived, and both amplitude and latency measures were obtained. Antisocial personality symptomatology was assessed using the ASP section of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule IV. RESULTS: Data were analyzed via linear regression using alcoholism, ASP positive (ASP+) status and their interaction term as predictors of N400 amplitude and latency. Significant latency findings were noted in the related/incongruent sentence condition. Increased N400 latency was predicted by ASP+ status at electrode site Pz (p = .01). The interaction of alcoholism and ASP+ status predicted increased N400 latency at electrode site P4 (p = .009), with ASP+ alcoholics demonstrating the greatest latency. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of N400 latency differences in response to related/incongruent semantic information in the current study differs from previous findings in studies of chronic alcoholism that do not account for ASP. These data suggest that antisocial personality disorder and alcoholism may affect cognitive function via different underlying mechanisms.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Neurophysiological efficiency in male and female alcoholics.

Chronic alcoholics often exhibit impairment in behavioral indicators of cognitive efficiency. However, potential neurophysiological correlates of this deficit are understudied. To examine this function, semantic expectancy was measured by recording the N400 component of the event-related potential (ERP), which is elicited by incongruent semantic information. Abstinent alcoholics, 21-45 days sober (n = 26; 12 males, 14 females), as well as age and education equated community controls (n = 26; 12 males, 14 females), were instructed to read silently 218 sentences ending with either congruent, related/incongruent, or unrelated/incongruent terminal words. Difference waveforms to the terminal word were derived, and amplitude and latency measures of the most negative peak between 300 and 600 ms were obtained. Electrode sites included the midline sites, Fz, Cz, and Pz; the temporal sites T3 and T4; and parietal sites P3 and P4. Significant group effects in amplitude were observed for the difference waveform under the unrelated/incongruent condition at T3, T4, and P4 (P < or = .05). Measures at P3, Pz, Fz, and Cz approached significance (P < or = .15). Although the overall pattern did not change when regression techniques were used to control for age, only the T4 site retained significance (P < or = .05). Across all electrode sites, alcoholics produced reduced N400 amplitudes relative to community controls. Latency was unaffected. There were no group effects for amplitude or latency measures in the related/incongruent condition. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that alcoholics suffer from a subtle deficiency in neurophysiologically based cognitive efficiency which renders them less likely to respond appropriately to irrelevant information.

Adult↗