Improved performance 4 hours after cocaine

Abstract

Cocaine (2 mg/kg) was given orally to 13 healthy volunteers and physiologic, subjective, attentional and performance effects were measured over a period of 4 h. Posner's reaction time paradigm measured the effects of cocaine on performance and on attention to visual cues. Cocaine increased heart rate, systolic blood pressure and pupil diameter and reduced skin temperature. Physiologic effects, subjective rating of intoxication, and cocaine levels in saliva peaked at approximately 75 min and returned to precocaine levels within 3 h. In contrast, a reaction time measure of performance speed on the visual attention task showed improvement for 4 h after cocaine. A measure of covert attention in the cocaine condition failed to show the improvement which occurred in the placebo condition. Less fatigue was reported 4 h after cocaine than after placebo. Cocaine users may experience the drug's stimulant effects considerably longer than the euphoriant effects.

Psychostimulants

“…(Arria & Wish, 2006;Eickenhorst, Vitzthum, Klapp, Groneberg, & Mache, 2012;Grinspoon & Hedblom, 2005;McCabe, Knight, Teter, & Wechsler, 2005). Psychostimulants effectively increase arousal and learning attention in humans for long periods of time at doses inducing only a short lasting "high," with no signs of dysphoria (Higgins et al, 1990;Stillman, Jones, Moore, Walker, & Welm, 1993). Attention deficits induced by sleep deprivation can be ameliorated by low/medium doses of cocaine (Fischman & Schuster, 1980).…”

Perspiration versus saliva - basic aspects concerning their use in roadside drug testing

“…The theory and the results of a limited number of studies involving heroin and cocaine suggest that saliva concentrations are highly correlated to physiological and behavioral effects [6,8,31,63], which favors saliva for estimation of recent or actual drug administration. Besides Röhrich et al [52], detailed experiences of saliva testing from a roadside survey including 2235 specimens have been reported by Krüger [41].…”

“…After oral administration of cocaine, subjective rating of intoxication and euphoria correlated with salivary cocaine concentration, but stimulant effects still persisted when salivary levels had returned to pre-cocaine levels [63]. After a 40 mg dose of intravenous cocaine hydrochloride, cocaine levels in saliva peaked at 237-1843 ng/ml after 10 min and declined to an average of 29 ng/ml after 5 h [8].…”

Cocaine's effects on speech sound identification and reaction times in baboons

“…In a repeated acquisition task, for example, high doses of cocaine impaired accuracy (Fischman 1984). More recently, cocaine has been shown to increase Vigor and Arousal scores on the Profile of Mood States (POMS) inventory (Foltin and Fischman 1991), improve performance accuracy on a digit symbol substitution test (Higgins et al 1990) and improve reaction time speed on a visual attention task (Stillman et al 1993).…”