Nonmedical use of psychostimulants for cognitive enhancement is widespread and growing in neurotypical individuals, despite mixed scientific evidence of their effectiveness. Sleep benefits cognition, yet the interaction between stimulants, sleep, and cognition in neurotypical adults has received little attention. We propose that one effect of psychostimulants, namely decreased sleep, may play an important and unconsidered role in the effect of stimulants on cognition. We discuss the role of sleep in cognition, the alerting effects of stimulants in the context of sleep loss, and the conflicting findings of stimulants for complex cognitive processes. Finally, we hypothesize that sleep may be one unconsidered factor in the mythology of stimulants as cognitive enhancers and propose a methodological approach to systematically assess this relation.

中文翻译：

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尽管兴奋剂会偷走你的睡眠，但它能让你变得更聪明吗？


尽管精神兴奋剂有效性的科学证据不一，但用于增强认知的精神兴奋剂的非医学用途在神经正常个体中广泛存在且不断增长。睡眠有利于认知，但神经正常成年人的兴奋剂、睡眠和认知之间的相互作用却很少受到关注。我们认为，精神兴奋剂的一种效应，即睡眠减少，可能在兴奋剂对认知的影响中发挥着重要但未被考虑的作用。我们讨论了睡眠在认知中的作用、兴奋剂在睡眠不足情况下的警觉作用，以及兴奋剂对复杂认知过程的相互矛盾的发现。最后，我们假设睡眠可能是兴奋剂作为认知增强剂的神话中一个未被考虑的因素，并提出了一种系统评估这种关系的方法。