Residual effects of benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics on diurnal attention in a reaction time task

Résumé 0

"The residual effects of benzodiazepines on attention and psychomotor performance have been extensivelydocumented. However, there are very few studies comparing the action of benzodiazepines andnon-benzodiazepine (imidazopiridines and cyclopirrolones) compounds on these parameters. The aimof this work was to assess the residual effects on diurnal wakefulness in healthy volunteers after nocturnaladministration of a single dose of diazepam (10 mg), zolpidem (10 mg), zopiclone (7.5 mg),gamma-amino-ß-hydroxybutyrate (500 mg), or placebo. Drugs were given at 22 h (half-hour beforebedtime), in a double-blind fashion according to an extended Youden Square design. Subjects slept forsix consecutive nights in the sleep laboratory (habituation, baseline, drug 1, placebo, drug 2, placebo).The morning after nocturnal dosing, psychomotor performance was measured using a simple visuomotorreaction time (RT) task, with two stimulation patterns (isochronus and stochastic). The resultsindicated an absence of residual effects on attention after zopiclone and zolpidem intake. Likewise, administrationof diazepam did not provoke a significant deterioration in the attention level. GABOB wasthe only drug which produced a marked decrease in the isochronus RT after 9 hours of its administration,in comparison to its baseline, not appreciating any significant modification in the stochastic RT.It is emphasized that residual impairment on RT following intake of hypnotics should be consideredon the basis of the stimulation pattern used (stochastic vs isochronus) during vigilance assessment"