Psychostimulants may block long-term memory formation via degraded sleep in healthy adults.

Psychostimulants may block long-term memory formation via degraded sleep in healthy adults. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2020 Nov 20;:107342 Authors: Whitehurst LN, Mednick SC Abstract Sleep is vital for biological function and long-term memory formation, with preferential enhancement of emotionally laden content. A growing trend in healthy young adults is the non-medical use of psychostimulants, or "smart drugs", to prevent sleep and, hopefully, enhance cognition. However, the effect of these drugs on sleep-dependent memory processes are unclear. Here, in a within-subject, double-blind, placebo-controlled design, we investigated the impact of morning administration of dextroamphetamine on memory retention of negative and neutral pictures after 1) 12 hours of wake, and 2) 24 hours with sleep. After 12-hrs of wake, stimulants increased hit rate for neutral, but not negative, pictures, compared to placebo. No differences in memory discrimination were found. In addition, stimulants impaired nighttime sleep and significantly reduced memory for neutral pictures at 24-hrs, compared to placebo. Again, no performance differences between drug conditions were found for negative pictures. Together, these findings suggest that stimulants impairment of nighttime sleep likely leads to next day memory costs. PMID: 33227506 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Neurobiology of Learning and Memory - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Neurobiol Learn Mem Source Type: research