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 h of wake, and 2) 24 h 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.

睡眠对于生物功能和长期记忆的形成至关重要，优先增强充满情绪的内容。健康年轻人的一个增长趋势是非医疗使用精神兴奋剂或“智能药物”，以防止睡眠，并有望提高认知能力。然而，这些药物对依赖睡眠的记忆过程的影响尚不清楚。在这里，在一项受试者内、双盲、安慰剂对照设计中，我们研究了早上服用右旋安非他明对 1) 醒来 12 小时和 2) 24 小时睡眠后负面和中性图片的记忆保留的影响。清醒 12 小时后，与安慰剂相比，兴奋剂提高了中性而非负面图片的命中率。没有发现记忆歧视的差异。此外，与安慰剂相比，兴奋剂会损害夜间睡眠，并显着降低 24 小时内中性图片的记忆力。同样，对于负片，没有发现药物条件之间的性能差异。总之，这些发现表明兴奋剂对夜间睡眠的损害可能会导致第二天的记忆成本。