Original articleModafinil improves cognition and response inhibition in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Section snippets
Patients and procedures
Twenty patients (seven female) meeting criteria for a DSM-IV diagnosis of ADHD (American Psychiatric Association 1994) were recruited from patients attending a specialized psychiatric clinic for the assessment of suspected ADHD in adults. They had a mean age of 28 ± 9 years, an average National Adult Reading Test (NART) verbal intelligence quotient (IQ) (Nelson 1982) of 108 ± 6, and had been in education for an average of 14 ± 2 years (Table 1). The study was approved by the Cambridge Local
Physiologic effects—blood pressure and pulse
Physiologic effects of modafinil were apparent for pulse (drug × time interaction) [F(3,54) = 4.07, p = .011], with a marginally nonsignificant effect on systolic blood pressure [F(3,54) = 2.58, p = .063]. In both cases, modafinil attenuated the natural decrease in heart rate and systolic blood pressure seen over the testing session (Figure 1). Modafinil also increased diastolic blood pressure over all time points (main effect of drug) [F(1,18) = 5.28, p = .034) and showed a trend toward a
Discussion
The results of this study demonstrate that in adult ADHD, modafinil is associated with a pattern of cognitive enhancement similar to that seen in healthy controls (Turner et al 2003). Modafinil improved performance on tests of digit span, visual memory (delayed PRM and DMTS), spatial planning (NTOL), decision-making (Gamble), and SSRT. These effects were accompanied by a slowing in latency with modafinil on the NTOL task and trends toward slower latency on the delayed PRM and DMTS tasks. This
Acknowledgements
DCT was funded by a Research Studentship from the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom. BJS and TWR are consultants for Cambridge Cognition Ltd.
We thank the patients for participating in this study, which was funded by a Wellcome Trust Program grant awarded to Professors T.W. Robbins, B.J. Everitt, B.J. Sahakian, and Dr. A.C. Roberts and completed within the Medical Research Council (United Kingdom) Center for Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience.
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