On-the-road driving performance after use of the antihistamines mequitazine and l-mequitazine, alone and with alcohol

Abstract

ObjectivePrevious studies demonstrated that mequitazine produces mild sedation after single doses.Its enantiomer, l-mequitazine, has a stronger potency for the H1 receptor. The aim of the current study was to assess the effects of l-mequitazine and mequitazine, alone and with alcohol, on driving.MethodsTwenty-five healthy volunteers were treated with l-mequitazine 2.5, 5.0 and 10 mg, mequitazine 10 mg and placebo, alone and in combination with alcohol in a double-blind crossover design. Driving performance was assessed using the standardized highway driving test in normal traffic. Its primary measure is the Standard Deviation of the Lateral Position (SDLP). Secondary measures consisted of an auditory word learning test during driving, and subjective measures of driving performance.ResultsL-mequitazine 2.5 and 5.0 mg showed no effect on SDLP in the highway driving test, while SDLP significantly increased after l-mequitazine 10 mg (alone +1.59 cm; with alcohol +1.41 cm) and mequitazine 10 mg (with alcohol +1.17 cm). Alcohol significantly impaired all performance measures (SDLP +2.63 cm) but did not interact with the effects of treatment. Subjective measures indicated that participants were aware of the impairing effects of alcohol, but not of l-mequitazine and mequitazine.ConclusionL-mequitazine can be considered safe to drive in dosages of 2.5 and 5.0 mg. L-mequitazine 10 mg led to mild driving impairment. Alcohol impaired all performance measures and added to the effects of l-mequitazine and mequitazine.

Driving fatigue increases after the Spring transition to Daylight Saving Time in young male drivers: A pilot study

“… Participants exhibited an increase in SR driving fatigue during the post-DST trial, when considering both objective measurements, i.e., SDLP and PERCLOS. In absolute terms, the increase in fatigue as assessed by SDLP was greater than that previously documented for alcohol and comparable to that previously documented for a hypnotic ( van der Sluiszen et al, 2016 , Vinckenbosch et al, 2020 ); the increase in PERCLOS values was comparable to that of sleep-deprived drivers ( Jackson et al, 2016 ). Both were higher than the increases observed in partially sleep-deprived drivers in the same simulator scenario ( Cellini et al, 2023 ).…”

“…In absolute terms, the marginal mean of SDLP was 0.256 m in the pre-DST trial and 0.296 m in the post-DST. This 4 cm increase is relevant also under a physical point of view, since, for reference, it is higher than the SDLP increase reported after the administration of 0.5 g/L alcohol (2.6 cm, van der Sluiszen et al, 2016 , Vinckenbosch et al, 2020 ), and comparable to that reported after the administration of 10 mg of the sleep-inducing medication zolpidem (3.8 cm, Vinckenbosch et al, 2020 ). The marginal mean of PERCLOS increased from 4.59% of trial 1 to 5.90% of trial 2, which is comparable to the 1.66% increase observed in drivers performing a similar driving task after 24 h of total sleep deprivation ( Jackson et al, 2016 ).…”

Validating lane drifts as a predictive measure of drug or sleepiness induced driving impairment

“…In order to validate proposed operationalizations of lane drifts (Verster et al, 2014;Verster et al, 2018), data was pooled from 11 randomized, placebo-controlled, cross-over studies that employed the on-the-road driving test and were conducted at two independent research centers. These studies were originally designed to assess the effects of alcohol (Kuypers et al, 2006;van der Sluiszen et al, 2016), hypnotics (Jongen et al, 2018;Mets et al, 2011;Leufkens et al, 2009;Vermeeren et al, 2018;Vermeeren et al, 2016;Vermeeren et al, 2015;Vermeeren et al, 2014;Verster et al, 2002), and sleep deprivation (Jongen et al, 2015) and were selected for the current investigation because the administered treatments were found to significantly affect the SDLP. The pooled dataset included 315 healthy volunteers of both sexes who drove after alcohol (N = 49), zopiclone (N = 194), zolpidem (N = 72), oxazepam (N = 43), diazepam (N = 21) and sleep deprivation (N = 23) and after placebo (N = 315).…”