Experimental Study Of The Effects Of Modafinil On Stress Of 48h Sleep Deprivation

Sleep is the basic physiological and psychological need for the body, sleep deprivation is a universal phenomenon in modern society because of working, studying or keeping on duty at night. The influence of sleep deprivation is increasingly obvious and negative, especially in military field. Continuous operation or sustained operation leads to sleep loss and stress inevitably, which impact military performance seriously. So, the study of sleep deprivation is always a focus of stress research.One of the targets of sleep deprivation research is to look for the practical and effective countermeasures. At present, it's believed that to take central nervous system stimulant medicine properly is the most effective way. modafinilis a brand new type of central nervous system stimulant. It can not only sustain the state of awareness, but also avoid side-effects ofcentral nervous system stimulant such as addiction, withdraw symptoms and unstable actions.Present study evaluated the modafinil's counter-effect against stress induced by 48 hours sleep deprivation through cognitive tests, emotion scale and some physiological index such as blood and ERP. Possible side-effects were also detected by monitoring vital sign, blood test and some side-effect questionnaires. Control study with placebo, technology of double-blind and a crossover design were also performed in this study.The flow-sheet of present study was as follows: 18 healthy male volunteers were involved in the study. The sleep deprivation was from 7 a.m. in the first day to 7 a.m. in the third day. Subjects were separated to 2 groups which were separately ministered withmodafinil and placebo. The psychological and physiological index was examined in different specified times.The conclusions of present study were as follows:1. Cognitive ability decreased dramatically in SD. The processing speed and correct rate both distinguished decreased. The level of anxiety-depression and the level of corticosteroid in blood plasma increased, the amplitude of P300 dropped, latency extended. The subjective drowsiness also increased. The negative effects of SD become more serious with the time of SD.2. modafinil is a valid counter measure against SD. Almost every index in the study was improved after the administration of modafinil: The processing speed and correct rate both distinguished increased. The level of anxiety-depression and the level of corticosteroid in blood plasma decreased, the amplitude of P300 increased, latency shortened. The subjective drowsiness also decreased. The counter-effects of modafinil against SD become more obvious with the time of SD.3. The index of ERP was more sensitive than subjective cognitive tests to sleep deprivation. The results suggested that cognitive neuroscience could do more in evaluating and researching the brain function under SD than behavioral tests.4. 48 hours SD impacts emotion negatively. However, emotion is vulnerable to many other external factors. And the subjective evaluation questionnaire can not reflect emotion precisely. Therefore, in the future research, it's advised that some objective measure technique were performed in this field.5. Low dose and multiple oral administration ofmodafinil didn't apparently change the VS and blood states. And there was no harmful effect reported in present study. So ,it's safe to takemodafinil to counter negative effect of SD.