Abstract: 1. Nicotine improves attention in a wide variety of tasks in healthy volunteers. 2. Nicotine improves immediate and longer term memory in healthy volunteers. 3. Nicotine improves attention in patients with probable Alzheimer's Disease. 4. While some of the memory effects of nicotine may be due to enhanced attention, others seem to be the result of improved consolidation as shown by post-trial dosing.