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Completed Phase 1 Interventional Accepts healthy volunteers

Assessing Top Down and Bottom Up Attention Mechanisms in Smokers Using Nicotine Nasal Spray

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT01136642

Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01136642. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.

ClinicalTrials.gov public records Last synced Sep 2, 2026, 12:36 AM EDT

Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

Background: * Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and researchers are interested in gaining a better understanding of the perceived beneficial effects of nicotine to help improve treatment strategies for nicotine dependence. Understanding the conditions under which nicotine improves attention and cognitive processing may provide more useful information for this research. * The ability to pay attention and filter relevant from irrelevant stimuli is central to all aspects of information-processing. Top-down and bottom-up attentional processes illustrate how the brain combines stimuli and goal-directed behaviors. Bottom-up processing is an unconscious response to sensory input; for instance, when the eyes automatically focus on a prominent image in a picture. Top-down processing is a conscious response to drive attention toward specific stimuli; for instance, when a person is asked to focus on a less immediately noticeable image in a picture. Researchers are interested in determining whether nicotine improves cognitive performance by acting on top-down or bottom-up attentional mechanisms. Objectives: \- To investigate the effect of nicotine on the top-down and bottom-up mechanisms of attention in cigarette smokers. Eligibility: \- Current smokers (at least 10 cigarettes per day for at least 1 year) between 18 and 55 years of age. Design: * This study will involve one training session and four experimental sessions. * During the training session, participants will receive a sample dose of the nicotine nasal spray used in the study to determine if they can tolerate the effects. * For each experimental session, participants will receive one dose of nicotine nasal spray (1 mg, 2 mg, or 3 mg) or placebo spray, followed by blood pressure and heart rate monitoring, performance of an attentional test, and questionnaires to rate participants perception of nicotine effectiveness. Participants may receive different doses at different sessions, and will not be told which dose they will receive at any given point.

Study identification

NCT ID
NCT01136642
Recruitment status
Completed
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase 1
Enrollment
43 participants

Conditions and interventions

Interventions

Drug

Eligibility (public fields only)

Age range
18 Years to 55 Years
Sex
All
Healthy volunteers
Accepts healthy volunteers

This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.

Study timeline

Start date
Jan 20, 2010
Primary completion
Not listed
Completion
Nov 12, 2012
Last update posted
Dec 15, 2019

2010 – 2012

United States locations

U.S. sites
1
U.S. states
1
U.S. cities
1
Facility City State ZIP Site status
National Institute on Drug Abuse, Biomedical Research Center (BRC) Baltimore Maryland 21224

Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.

About this trial record page

What this page shows
Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01136642, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
What this page does not do
No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
Where the data comes from
Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
Last refresh
Last update posted Dec 15, 2019 · Synced Sep 2, 2026

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Open the official record

The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01136642 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.

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