Finger tapping rates and the effects of various factors

Silver et al., (2002) studied the effects of smoking on finger tapping rate of schizophrenic patients and found that smoking is associated with faster central processing. Perkins et al., (1990), and Roth and Batting (1991) also found that nicotine administration can increase finger tapping rate in normal smokers. However, the mechanism by which nicotine improves central processing is unknown (Silver et al., 2002).