Single Dose Methylphenidate Does Not Impact on Attention and Decision Making in Healthy Medical Students
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Methylphenidate (MPH) is effective for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and used illicitly by healthy adults, even though evidence concerning its efficacy is inconsistent and equivocal. We studied the effect of MPH on two cognitive tasks (attention/inhibition and decision making), a subjective rating scale and heart rate and blood pressure. Methods: Forty five medical students, ages 20 - 30, who denied past or present ADHD symptoms, participated in this double-blind, randomized, placebo controlled cross-over experiment. Data collection was conducted in two sessions, each 2.5 hours, two weeks apart. At the beginning of each session, the subjects completed a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) quantifying their feelings regarding present mental and emotional state and then administered either placebo or MPH (0.3 mg/kg). Ninety minutes later, they again completed the VAS and were administered two cognitive tasks: Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA) and the modified Cambridge Gambling Test (mCGT). We found no differences with or without MPH for reaction time, response time variability, number of commissions and omissions in the TOVA or for quality, sum of gamble and reaction time for the mCGT. Results: No differences were observed between sessions with or without methylphenidate for reaction time, response time variability, number of commissions and omissions in the TOVA or for quality, sum of gamble and reaction time for the mCGT. Furthermore, no differences were observed in subjective rating on the VAS. Small, non-significant increases in blood pressure were documented. A practice effect was noted for the two consecutive sessions regardless of intervention. Conclusions: In this study, MPH did not affect sustained attention and decision making in healthy young adults, did not alter the subjective perception of their mental and emotional state nor influence heart rate or blood pressure. J Neurol Res. 2012;2(6):227-234 doi: https://doi.org/10.4021/jnr143w
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".