Effects of modafinil on attentional processes during 60 hours of sleep deprivation

Abstract

The present study investigates the eects of moda®nil (300 mg/24 h) versus a placebo on the performance of a visual search task during 60 h of sleep deprivation. Moda®nil was administrated in doses of 100 mg three times per day during sleep deprivation. Six healthy volunteers participated in a double-blind experiment including two experimental sessions of 7 days each. The experiment used the visual search paradigm for an`O' target among`Q' distractors and the reverse. The speed and accuracy in detecting the target were measured by RTs slopes (i.e. search rates) and the number of errors (i.e. error rates), respectively. Many authors attribute rapid search rates obtained for Q' targets (low RTs slopes) to parallel/automatic processes and slow search rates obtained for`O' targets (high RTs slope) to serial/attentional processes. The results revealed an asymmetrical search pattern for the detection of`Q' versus`O' targets across the sleep deprivation period (i.e. parallel versus serial search, respectively). Rapid search rates for`Q' targets remained unchanged between placebo and moda®nil conditions during sleep deprivation. However, slow search rates for`O' targets increased linearly in placebo condition, but remained at the same level as the control-test in moda®nil condition. Error rates and search rates also increased. For`O' and`Q' targets, the number of errors increased in the placebo condition, but remained stable in the moda®nil condition. In summary, we can conclude that the administration of moda®nil (300 mg/24 h) during sleep deprivation prevents the slowing of serial processes (attentional shifts) and the increasing of errors. #

Effect of modafinil on fatigue, mood, and health-related quality of life in patients with narcolepsy

“…The positive changes in specific POMS factor scores in the present investigation indicate that modafinil treatment significantly reduces fatigue and significantly improves vigor and cognition, consistent with the POMS rating results in a previous study (Pigeau et al 1995). Modafinil has been shown to preserve various aspects of cognition, such as concentration and sustained attention, in laboratory models of acute sleep loss (Baranski et al 1998;Stivalet et al 1998). Further support of modafinil's cognitive enhancing effects in healthy volunteers without sleep deprivation can be drawn from a recently published study using a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests (Turner et al 2003).…”

The Efficacy of Modafinil as an Operational Fatigue Countermeasure Over Several Days of Reduced Sleep During a Simulated Escape and Evasion Scenario

“…Subjects given 50 mg every eight hours, over a 24-hour period, maintained non-significant performance improvement when compared to placebo. Stivalet, Esquivie, and Barraud (1998) studied the effects of modafinil on attentional processing during 60 hours of sleep deprivation. Subjects were given a total of 300 mg/day in 100 mg doses every 8 hours.…”

Non-cholinergic modulation of antisaccade performance: a modafinil-nicotine comparison

“…Noradrenergic stimulation is implicated in sensory alerting, response selection and response inhibition (Robbins 2002;Chamberlain et al 2006). Direct and indirect noradrenergic stimulation in healthy volunteers can improve alertness, vigilance and sustained attention (Stivalet et al 1998;Turner et al 2003;Randall et al 2004;Baranski et al 2004), while more selective working memory effects have been reported with noradrenergic challenge that may reflect dose-related attentional fluctuations at encoding (e.g. Jakala et al 1999, using guanfacine;Muller et al 2004;Randall et al 2005, using modafinil).…”