Dr. Stephen Heishman, a scientist with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (part of the National Institutes of Health) and colleagues studied all the literature they could find on nicotine and performance published between 1994 and 2008. They reviewed 41 studies and looked at how nicotine affected everything from fine motor skills to short term memory. Their results were published in the journal Psychopharmacology. They found that nicotine not only helps with fine motor skills and alertness, but it improves short term memory for tasks as well. "The effect on attention was well known, but I was somewhat surprised about the effects on memory," Heishman said. "Smokers say that one of the reasons that they smoke is to help them concentrate, focus on tasks and do their work, and obviously a lot of our daily work involves memory. So on the other hand, I guess it shouldn't be too surprising."
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