Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement

Overview

There is growing debate on the use of drugs that can promote cognitive enhancement. Amphetamine-like drugs have been employed as cognitive enhancers, but all of them have important side effects and may induce addiction. In our study, we will investigate the use of modafinil which, in recent years, has been proposed as cognitive enhancer. Modafinil appears to have less side effects compared to amphetamine-like drugs and we will analyzed whether the drug can influence cognitive performances and the brain resting state network activity of healthy young subjects.

Subjects will be included in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study in which a single dose (100 mg) of modafinil will be administered. Both groups will be, before and three hours after administration of drug or placebo, tested for neuropsychological performances with the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices II set (APM). Resting state functional magnetic resonance (rs-fMRI) will be also employed, before and after three hours, to study changes in the activity of resting state brain networks. Finally, with Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) we will evaluate the structural connectivity of the two groups.

Conditions