Eugeroic

The slang term eugeroic is a neologism for a group of stimulants that may produce long-lasting mental arousal. The term eugeroic is dervied from the Greek and means something equivlant to "good arousal".

While there is no scientific or medical drug class that cooresponds to eugeroic, a number of drugs used for the treatment of narcolepsy are often inclued in this cateogry, including Armodafinil, Modafinil and its earlier analogue Adrafinil. Another drug under production, code-named CX717, is being produced by the pharmacutical company Cortex.

As of March 4, 2008, there are no references to "eugeroic" or "eugeroics" on PubMed, indicating that the term is not used in medical literature.

Function
Armodafinil, Modafinil and Adrafinil tend to increase alertness, but may not have the peripheral (body) effects or addiction/tolerance/abuse potential of the traditional stimulants. They have minimal effect on sleep structure and do not cause rebound hypersomnolence or "come down" effects. These drugs have been used as a treatment for narcolepsy and to augment antidepressants.

Relationship to other medications
A related group of drugs called Ampakines is a class of drugs that modulates neurotransmitters in the brain. One of the major neurotransmitters is glutamate, and a reduced level of glutamate-mediated excitatory stimulation may be implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and a number of other diseases and disorders. They share many similar traits, although these seem to be more targeted towards specific conditions, such as memory enhancement.

When comparing Provigil (Modafinil) to drugs like Ritalin, the effect of Modafinil is longer lasting. Modafinil also has a lower risk of abuse and dependence than Ritalin.

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