Category:Eugeroics: Difference between revisions

The eugeroics are a small class of medicines used to promote wakefulness, prescribed principally for narcolepsy and other disorders of excessive daytime sleepiness, and increasingly off-label for shift-work sleep disorder, residual fatigue in depression, and as cognitive performance aids. They are distinct from the amphetamine-type psychostimulants: their activating effect is more selective and less euphorigenic, their effect on heart rate and blood pressure is smaller, and their potential for dependence is generally lower, though not absent.

The class is small and pharmacologically heterogeneous. Three members (modafinil, armodafinil, and adrafinil) share a related mechanism centred on dopamine reuptake inhibition with additional effects on histamine and orexin signalling; modafinil was introduced in France in the 1990s under the brand Provigil, armodafinil is its R-enantiomer (Nuvigil), and adrafinil is the older prodrug that is metabolized to modafinil. Pitolisant (Wakix), the newest member, is mechanistically distinct: it is a selective histamine H3 receptor inverse agonist, raising histamine release in the brain to promote arousal.

The word "eugeroic" comes from the Greek eu- (good) and egeirein (to wake). The synonymous label wakefulness-promoting agents is also common in the literature.