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Cognitive Enhancement Drugs
Neil Halelamien writes "The LA Times has an article on various cognitive enhancement drugs which are currently undergoing clinical trials. These include ampakines which amplify the strength of electrical signals between neurons, HT-0712 which enhances the transfer from short-term to long-term memory, and gene therapy which revitalizes existing neurons. The article also describes successes with the drug Modafinil, which seems to sharpen attention and mental agility. The side effects of these sorts of drugs are not yet fully known, although many neuroscientists think that they may lead to 'mental clutter' or task-obsessiveness."
As a followup to this, there are always "unintended effects" of supplemental drugs/molecules/herbs, whatever your X of choice. The stains on the lips from the sapho juice in Dune were relatively benign and a sign of the Mentat, but there are other effects of real world "additives" that one must be aware of and careful of when partaking. Celebrex should be the latest warning in a long line of possibly dangerous side effects.
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Actually, caffeine is better known for its ability to relieve headaches. Just check the ingredients on a bottle of Excedrin. Caffeine withdrawal headaches are very common in post-operative hospitalized patients who might not be getting the amount of coffee to which they are accustomed.
Well it was just on the evening ABC news 40% of arthritis patints take Celebrex while about 5% should. If you really want to understand how the new drugs reach the market read http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pres cription/hazard/independent.html
Piracetam is fantastic stuff.
In my experience, it will generally do nothing for you. It no direct effect on my memory for example.
In a stimulating environment however, the frequency and quality of those Eureka moments seems to be massively improved.
So I only take it during predictably profound learning experiences eg self-improvement seminars.
I take choline first thing and then 800mg both before the morning & afternoon sessions.
I tried Aniracetam which is good but more expensive; and Hydergine, which provides a cheap synergistic boost but screws up my nasal breathing. Hence neither worth it. Piracetam is cheap enough.
Ginko Biloba, Gurana, Caffiene, Taurine... hell, even assorted amphetamines. Or maybe some E if you *know* you're gonna fail it. Drug use for exams is as common as dirt already.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Chris Rock does a brilliant bit about drug ads. He talks about the ads just naming symptoms until they hit on something that rings a bell with you. "Do you get sleepy at night? Do you wake up in the morning? I got that. I'm sick!"
Acually it was Greg Giraldo in his stand up acts-not Chris Rock. You can also hear that bit in the song by lazyboy called "Underwear goes inside the pants"
Actually, he did mention something to that effect in his Never Scared Comedy Special
Thanks for the link! Here it is linkified: How Independent is the FDA? Karma whoring, of course! :-)
There is likely to be the possibility for a long term side effect, especially if the memory enhancing drugs are abused.
...just a thought... not that people haven't been doing this with caffeine for years.
AMPAkines facillitate glutamatergic neurotransmission, which is implicated in excitotoxicity and some forms of neural degeneration. Increasing the AMPA/glutamate transmission must be done with care so as not to shift the equilibrium towards more degeneration. This isn't a necessary side effect, but a possible one.
There is also the question as to what happens to someone who is using the drugs and stops suddenly, will they be slightly forgetful/retarded. Tolerance arrises when the body downregulates the effects of an exogenous substance to return towards the baseline (pre-exogenous substance level). As this occurs, more drug is needed to achieve the same effect. This occurs with morphine and this occurs with caffeine among other drugs. When you remove the exogenous substance, the body is still in the depressed state and downregulating the responses so that the person may perform sub-par. This provides the possibility of psychological addiction... if you're twice as forgetful after stopping as before starting, you are likely to continue using the drug.
I would like to make a few points myself, as an avid nootropic ("smart-drug") user. Nootropic: a word coined by Dr. Giurgea to describe a new class of drugs that act as cognitive enchancers with no side effects or toxicity, from Greek words noos, meaning mind and tropein meaning toward. The December 6th issue of newsweek had in huge font on the cover "Memory Drugs", and talked of ampakines, but also called the older nootropics "shots in the dark". If they are shots in the dark, I highly recommend shooting in the dark. A lot of pharmy companies would rather come up with more patentable/profitable drugs and chemicals.
There are a lot of drugs now adays that are considered smart drugs. Some are the 'racetams (piracetam, aniracetam, pramiracetam, oxiracetam). I have taken piracetam and aniracetam to my personal benefit, as I do suffer from attention, concentration, and general mental-clarity problems. Piracetam is super non-toxic and I highly recommend trying it (Do your research, google it!). It is thought to increase oxygen in the brain and act as a neuroprotectant, especially in environments with decreased oxygen.
There are also amino acids that are considered smart drugs, like l-theanine which produces a calm-concentrated mood, the amino is found in green tea, and is thought to be why green tea hardly gives the jitters. Try it for yourself by taking l-theanine with caffiene (coffee as a most likely source). So all of the posters who say "Hey, coffee/caffiene is all I need!", why not try supplementing with a natural amino acid. Vinpocetine is also a very usefull suppliment, it increases the blood flow to the brain, and is derived from the periwinkle plant. DMAE is also considered a smart-drug (dimethyl-amino-ethanol). DMAE is a precursor to acetyl-choline, one of the most used neurotransmitters. There are a whole lot more out there, so I highly recommend checking it out. Re-quoting a quote from http://smi2le.biz ( who also happens to be a cheap supplier of such suppliments [no affliction] )
"In 2004 Out-Caste agents started circulating the rumor that Intelligence was the most important factor in human life.
They said: "What else do you value? Love? Virtue? Money? Power? Freedom? Truth? All of these can be enhanced by increasing intelligence. A failure to increase intelligence can only diminish our ability to obtain and enjoy those goods.""
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
I can't say I've experienced any, but I might not have been a long term enough user to have experienced any.
I took it recreationally in college, 20 years ago. Freshman year it was a 4-5 times a month drug, sophomore maybe 1-2 times a month, with only maybe a dozen doses the rest of my college years.
At my peak in my freshman year, I was taking 2-3 hits of blotter (small bits of paper soaked in LSD about 1/8 the size of a stamp) maybe twice a week. The more we took the greater the dose required to really get more than a stimulant-type effect from it.
I knew a couple of habitual users who took half or quarter hits for the stimulation effect only before a night of heavy drinking. LSD makes you feel immune to liquor's psychological effects. I used to not drink as a rule when taking LSD, although once I did go to a party where the booze was free and drank so much that I could barely walk, despite not feeling drunk at all.
The effect was generally intense halucinations for about 2-3 hours and tapering off after that depending on dose, unbelievable physical energy (we often walked 10 miles in a night, in any weather), and an intense feeling of really "getting it" and achieving intense understanding which was forgotten once it wore off. A portable dictation machine affirmed the fact that we didn't actually achieve anything beyond the feeling of getting it -- insights were gibberish.
The downside was "coming down". It'd be 4 in the morning and we'd start to feel physically tired, a little bored, and mainly just wishing it was over. But sleep was hard to come by -- usually you'd doze for 4-5 hours around 5-6 AM and the next day was just shot. I think something like Xanax, Ativan or Valium would have helped. Booze and/or pot really didn't.
Eventually I grew tired of the 'coming down' part and killing the next day completely. Finding people suitable to take it with was an issue, too. Initiating someone to LSD was a risky issue, as some people tended to get a little overwhelmed by the experience. It's also a pretty serious drug to get caught with -- two people I knew casually got caught with 50 some doses and ended up doing felony jail time. And then there's the whole issue of buying it, dosage, and so on.
To this day, I have yet to experience a "flashback" or any of the other spooky tales associated with it. I don't have any real problems with focusing or anything else, and a recent MMPI test indicated that other than scoring high on the cynacism index, I don't have any obvious personality problems.
I wouldn't take it again, though. I think it was enlightening to some extent as a college student, but I think now it would just be stress inducing.
There's never been a fatal overdose on LSD. I started using recreational drugs after being bombarded this kind of innaccurate crap about pot and LSD, and decided I needed to find out for myself. Unfortunately there are really dangerous side effects of LSD and other recreational drugs- but only honest, accurate information will be helpful to anyone.
Even after MANY years of testing, a lot of the drugs that fall under the heading Nootropics have few to no side effects even when taken at massive doses. Another drug to look into after Piracetam is Vasopressin. There are several others as well. Very interesting reading.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
The World Bridge Federation already tests for drugs and some has already lost a medal for refusing the test.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I was referring to the following bit from the Wikipedia article. I haven't read The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, but I have read My Brain is Open, and his drug use was mentioned there.
Ritalin may make kids without ADD or ADHD high... But trust me. I was on Ritalin for 9 years. It never once made me high. Quite the opposite in fact. People who actually have ADD find that Ritalin, instead of making them high, actually slows them down, enabling them to concentrate and actually get something done for once in their life.
In fact, Ritalin is sometimes used as a diagnostic for ADD. You give it to someone, and then, if it makes them stoned, they don't have ADD, if it does not make them stoned, then they probably do.
That said, it does still keep some stimulant side effects even for people with ADD. When I took it, it kept me awake, so that I had to do my homework in the afternoon instead of the evening, because if I took a dose late enough to do it in the evening, I wouldn't sleep most of the night.
I am well aware that Ritalin does help everyone concentrate, but if it makes you high DON'T take it. Please. It is a mind-altering drug, very very similar in fact to speed, and it can be dangerous. It is addictive, and once somebody is addicted, they tend to go to great lengths and great expenses to get it. We used to get my Ritalin through a mail-order pharmacy that my pediatrician recommended, and about 1/3 of the time, the prescription would get stolen somewhere in transit.
Now, today, I wouldn't in fact recommend Ritalin for anybody... Because there is a new, non-stimulant alternative drug out called Strattera. Some people don't like it, because "It doesn't give me the rush and energy that Ritalin does." Well, if thats the case... go talk to your doctor. You almost certainly don't have ADD, and shouldn't be taking Ritalin in the first place (See above). Strattera works for 24 hours, so theres no sudden coming off the dose midday, and since it's not a stimulant, it doesn't keep you up at night, and it doesn't kill your appetite nearly as much as Ritalin or Concerta (really slow release Ritalin variant). So, on the whole, I think it is a much better drug.
ADD has been so overdiagnosed in the last decade or so (oh, your kid is having problems in school? ADD. Watches too much TV? ADD. You (the parents) are schmucks who have no idea how to raise a kid? The kid has ADD. get the picture?), that Ritalin has kind of become crack for kids. So many kids are on it who shouldn't be, and consequently go through a large part of their childhood stoned a mile high. But properly used, Ritalin is definitely not crack for kids, and for the sake of those who do have ADD... resist the stereotype. It may be true in a large number of cases, but correct those cases rather than condemning Ritalin (and those who use it) in general.
Rant.end();
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
One of the things I have to consider, as a person suffering from brain injury that inhibits my memory, attention, and sometimes cognition, is whether the possible side effects of the drugs, even if they include decreased lifespan, are better or worse than the "side effects" I already have as a result of my brain injury.
I can go days, or even weeks at a time, with severely reduced functioning.
There's a _lot_ in the way of side effects that I would be able to put up with if I were able to get a return of functionality that let me return to doing the work and creative pursuits I'd like to do.
The problem, of course, is that often we discover that various medications or treatments simply let us trade one set of symptoms that decrease our ability to function normally with different ones that decrease our ability to function normally. If we're lucky, the side effects we experience (as an individual) may be something that we _prefer_ to our normal illness or injury.
I'm personally _very_ leery of chemicals that may affect my brain or it's chemistry. I already have irreparable problems, and I'm very cautious about doing anything that could leave me worse off.
At the same time, I'm always _very_ eager to hear of anything that might possibly give me some relief, and help me to be a more functional member of society and my family.
I would be willing to put up with lessened physical activity, pain, or even a shorter life, if it would let me just function again. My concern is always that something I take that affects my brain will give me all that... as well as some other effects such as headaches, nausea, (things that would reduce my functionality also), or long-term effects that may last even after I stop taking the meds that might make my existing symptoms even worse.
And, of course, my biggest fear is that the companies that make these drugs don't strike me as being concerned about anyone's health _first_. They are concerned about making _money_ first. I worry that they'll apply "the formula" (a la Fight Club) to any new medication, rather than stringent and ethical testing. I see a lot of what looks like drugs that get pushed through like "fads" that seem to provide little additional benefit, but lots of new problems, for more money. I'd hate to take risks with an arthritis or heart medication... and I'd _really_ hate to take risks with something that messes with my brain.
Cautious, but hopeful, nonetheless,
Coyote
The chess professionals already have this. The president of FIDE, the world chess federation, wants chess to be an Olympic sport. It is never going to be one. But now the Grandmasters have to submit to drug tests.
English is easier said than done.
For example, aspirin can cause an upset stomach in some people -- but it's also been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease. If I were in a high-risk group, I know I'd rather have a grumbling stomach than a malfunctioning heart.
The studies showing the protective effect were done with buffered aspirin to protect the participants' stomachs. The buffers are typically magnesium salts.
There are claims that further studies using plain aspirin without the magnesium showed no protective effects and were not published. The implication is a simply magnesium supplement, or your daily vitamin is just as effective without the side-effects.
Does anybody here know of some scientific study of this?
My God, it's Full of Source!
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