The development of behavioral tests to assess the effects of cognitive enhancers

The search for drugs that enhance cognition requires the development of behavioral tests for animals. These tests must be able to identify potentially therapeutic drugs and reject ineffective drugs. A reference compound for cognitive enhancement does not exist, and may not be a reasonable goal. Therefore, a coherent conceptual and experimental framework is needed to organize the various research endeavors in this area. This paper proposes a framework to assist in the development and evaluation of specific behavioral tests. It requires explicit identification of the goals of the research, the cognitive process, the neural systems involved in the process, the selectivity and sensitivity of tasks that measure the process, the validity of the behavioral tasks as a model to predict the effects of the drug in humans.