TY - JOUR
T1 - Morning stimulant administration reduces sleep and overnight working memory improvement
AU - Tselha, Tenzin
AU - Whitehurst, Lauren N.
AU - Yetton, Benjamin D.
AU - Vo, Tina T.
AU - Mednick, Sara C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2019/9/16
Y1 - 2019/9/16
N2 - The goal of cognitive enhancement is to improve mental functions using interventions including cognitive training, brain stimulation and pharmacology. Indeed, psychostimulants, commonly used for cognitive enhancement purposes, while preventing sleep, have been shown to increase working memory (WM) and attention. Sleep, however, is also important for cognitive function; thus, understanding the interaction between stimulants, sleep and cognition may inform current approaches to cognitive enhancement. We used a double-blind, placebo controlled, repeated measure design to investigate the effect of morning administration of a commonly used stimulant, dextroamphetamine (DEX, 20 mg), on repeated, within-day and overnight WM performance, as well as on sleep in healthy young adults. Compared with placebo (PBO), we found no within-day benefit of DEX on WM. After sleep, DEX performed worse than PBO and the overnight improvement in performance in the PBO condition was absent in the DEX condition. Moreover, sleep quality was negatively affected by DEX administration. In summary, we found no cognitive boost from psychostimulants across a day of wake and a blockade of overnight WM increases with the stimulant, compared to PBO.
AB - The goal of cognitive enhancement is to improve mental functions using interventions including cognitive training, brain stimulation and pharmacology. Indeed, psychostimulants, commonly used for cognitive enhancement purposes, while preventing sleep, have been shown to increase working memory (WM) and attention. Sleep, however, is also important for cognitive function; thus, understanding the interaction between stimulants, sleep and cognition may inform current approaches to cognitive enhancement. We used a double-blind, placebo controlled, repeated measure design to investigate the effect of morning administration of a commonly used stimulant, dextroamphetamine (DEX, 20 mg), on repeated, within-day and overnight WM performance, as well as on sleep in healthy young adults. Compared with placebo (PBO), we found no within-day benefit of DEX on WM. After sleep, DEX performed worse than PBO and the overnight improvement in performance in the PBO condition was absent in the DEX condition. Moreover, sleep quality was negatively affected by DEX administration. In summary, we found no cognitive boost from psychostimulants across a day of wake and a blockade of overnight WM increases with the stimulant, compared to PBO.
KW - Cognition
KW - Cognitive enhancement
KW - Memory
KW - Sleep
KW - Stimulant
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U2 - 10.1016/j.bbr.2019.111940
DO - 10.1016/j.bbr.2019.111940
M3 - Article
C2 - 31078618
AN - SCOPUS:85066101926
SN - 0166-4328
VL - 370
JO - Behavioural Brain Research
JF - Behavioural Brain Research
M1 - 111940
ER -