Can stimulants make you smarter, despite stealing your sleep?

Autor: Whitehurst LN; Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA, 40508. Electronic address: lauren.whitehurst@uky.edu., Morehouse A; Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA, 92617., Mednick SC; Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA, 92617. Electronic address: mednicks@uci.edu.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Trends in cognitive sciences [Trends Cogn Sci] 2024 Aug; Vol. 28 (8), pp. 702-713. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 May 18.
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.04.007
Abstrakt: Nonmedical use of psychostimulants for cognitive enhancement is widespread and growing in neurotypical individuals, despite mixed scientific evidence of their effectiveness. Sleep benefits cognition, yet the interaction between stimulants, sleep, and cognition in neurotypical adults has received little attention. We propose that one effect of psychostimulants, namely decreased sleep, may play an important and unconsidered role in the effect of stimulants on cognition. We discuss the role of sleep in cognition, the alerting effects of stimulants in the context of sleep loss, and the conflicting findings of stimulants for complex cognitive processes. Finally, we hypothesize that sleep may be one unconsidered factor in the mythology of stimulants as cognitive enhancers and propose a methodological approach to systematically assess this relation.
Competing Interests: Declaration of interests No interests are declared.
(Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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