Attempts to measure drug effects on impulsity.

Impulsive behaviour is a part of personality, and its poor control in psychiatric disorders reduces driving safety. Since the components (novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence) of temperament scales presumably are involved with various neurotransmitters, therapeutic and/or harmful effects on impulsive behaviour should be evaluated in laboratory tests predictive of drug-induced impairment of driving fitness. Since the personality tests are time consuming, simple attention tests have been used for subjects with high or low impulsivity. (A)