[Effect of psychotropic drugs on vigilance and motor performances]

This review paper deals with the impact of psychotropic drugs on vigilance, awakening and motricity. Antidepressants can be divided into 3 categories, depending on the subject's awakening: sedatives with a strong anticholinergic component, compounds devoid of positive or negative impact on cognition and stimulating antidepressants. The principal effect of lithium is to lengthen the reaction time. Taken acutely, neuroleptics produce alterations of fine motor gestures, but when taken chronically they spare the functioning of cognition. Benzodiazepines act on vigilance in various ways, depending on their half-life and on their plasma peak time after oral administration. The effect of anticonvulsants on cognition is more pronounced with phenytoin and barbiturates than with carbamazepine or valproate sodium. The problems of comparative analysis in this field and the trends in current studies are underlined.