This week’s this week in DARPA showcases one of the many ways that DARPA is always looking to maximize the combat effectiveness of the war fighter. First, some background, orexins (also called hypocretins) are a kind of neuropeptide hormones that are thought to be important in wakefulness and appetite stimulation. It turns of that the good folks at DARPA following a series of experiments in monkeys found that after delivering doses of orexin A intra-nasally to sleep deprived monkeys they were able to perform as well as their well-rested counterparts. While humans using stimulants to stay awake is nothing new, orexin seems to not suffer from many of the drawbacks and side-effects associated with amphetamines.

Hit the link for the abstract of the monkey experiment