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Background: Fatigue remains an important factor in major aviation accidents. Stimulants may counteract fatigue's adverse effects, with modafinil as a promising alternative to caffeine. However, the effect of a single dose of modafinil after a limited period of sleep deprivation remains unknown. Aims: This study aims to determine the effect of 200 mg modafinil on vigilance during a limited period of sleep deprivation compared to 300 mg caffeine and placebo. Methods: Thirty-two volunteers of the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) were double-blindly administered modafinil, caffeine, and placebo on three non-consecutive trial days after being awake for median 17 h. Afterwards, subjects completed six series of the Vigilance and Tracking test (VigTrack), psychomotor vigilance task (PVT), and Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS), yielding six primary endpoints. Results: This study revealed statistically significant effects of caffeine and modafinil compared with placebo on all endpoints, except for VigTrack mean tracking error. PVT results were less impaired 2 h after administration, followed by VigTrack parameters and SSS scores 2 h thereafter. Compared with caffeine, modafinil significantly improved PVT and SSS scores at 8 h after administration. Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that 200 mg modafinil and 300 mg caffeine significantly decrease the effects of a limited period of sleep deprivation on vigilance compared with placebo. Although PVT parameters already improved 2 h after administration, the most notable effects occurred 2–4 h later. Modafinil seems to be effective longer than caffeine, which is consistent with its longer half-life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological and physiological states such as mood, hunger, stress, and sleep deprivation are known to affect decision-making processes and therefore crucially influence consumer behavior. A possible biological mechanism underlying the observed variability of consumer behavior is the context-sensitive variation in the levels of neuromodulators in the brain. In a series of four experimental studies, the authors pharmaceutically reduce the levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain to diminish the availability of subjects' cognitive resources. In doing so, they study how serotonin brain levels influence (1) subjects' tendency to avoid buying and (2) consumers' preference for product options positioned as a compromise in a given choice set rather than for more extreme alternatives (i.e., the compromise effect). Using realistic product choice scenarios in a binding decision framework, they find that a reduction of brain serotonin levels leads to choice deferral and decreases the compromise effect, both as a within-subjects and as a between-subjects choice phenomenon. As such, this study provides neurobiological evidence for the assumption that the compromise effect is the result of deliberate and demanding thought processes rather than intuitive decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]