Effects of alcohol and performance incentives on immediate working memory.

Rationale And Objectives: The Sternberg Memory Scanning task was used to test the hypotheses that immediate working memory (WM) would be impaired during moderate rising blood alcohol concentrations (BACs), and provision of a rewarding incentive for good performance under alcohol would counteract this impairment.

Methods: Two groups (n=18) of social drinkers received either 0.62 g/kg alcohol (A) or a placebo (P).

Caffeine as a performance-enhancing drug in rats: sex, dose, housing, and task considerations.

Past animal studies of the performance-enhancing properties of stimulant drugs, such as caffeine, may have suffered from a number of procedural and ethical problems. For example. the housing condition of the animals was often not taken into consideration.