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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."
Quote: It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
~Thufir
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the Nobel prize committee will have to start testing for brain doping?
-or so you'd think
The perfect worker:incapable of thinking of anything but the job he's concentrating on. Expect these to be mandatory by 2015.
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You know - of all the things I've learned in medicine and in life in general, there's always a price. The orientals had so much right with their yin and yang idea.
There was a time a few years ago where I was at this incredible ball/party and had the time of my life - it was such a high. The next day I was strangely a bit mellow and depressed. Perhaps all of the neural cascades that had let me have that high the night earlier were now a bit depleted.
I have this espresso machine which I love and the drinks give me this lovely little warm feeling inside - but if I drink too many, when the effect is gone I feel cold and tired.
Same thing for narcotics. We all know about the highs of some of those drugs - which are invariably followed with lows that force people to do anything to spare that.
O.k., so you take a drug that makes you concentrate a bit better. What happens later? Are you a bit dumber for a while afterwards? I respect Cephalon's attempts to stave Parkinsons' but be careful about other "enhancing" drugs.
For every action there's always a reaction. Just live a healthy life - eat well and exercise.
Nonsense. I've been taking them for years. No they don't. No they don't. No they don't. No they don't. No they don't. No they don't.
Vioxx and now Celebrex. The COX-2 inhibitors are revealing additional side effects like heart attack and kidney damage in a couple of studies now. Look, drugs are not benign things despite what marketing campaigns would have you believe and they should not be taken lightly. Apparently 44% of Americans are now on prescription drugs of one sort or another and one might start to wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.
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This seems like a useful place to point out an interesting read on Jerry Pournelle's web site on overclocking the brain.
I don't see a direct connection between the two articles, but perhaps someone more informed about neurochemistry could point one out.
I for one welcome our new Emergent overlords!
:)
Sorry a bit obscure
Success is as dangerous as failure, hope as hollow as fear.
I think I'll let others be the guinea pigs. Even after clinic trials (which only involve a few thousand people watched for only a year or so) doctors only have the barest of clues as to the effects and side-effects of a drug. It takes a long time, a bunch of studies, and a serious sample size to uncover the more subtle, rare-but-serious and long-term impacts of a medication.
No short-term trial can prove a drug is truly safe and efficacious. Until much, much, more data is in, I think I'll wait.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
While mind-enhancing drugs are novel, mind-enhancing diets and mind-enhancing environments have been the privilage of the well-to-do since time began.
The privilaged generally eat better than the unprivilaged. They generally have less exposure to environmental toxins. They generally have a more education-centric environment growing up.
Even measurements of mental ability can be manipulated by "teaching the test" or "teaching to the test." Someone with a "un-coached" SAT score of 1150 may score 1170 if they've been coached on how to take the test or if their parents or teachers focused on items likely to be on that particular test at the expense of other material.
All in all, if your parents have the means, you are more likely to have a better raw iq, possibly an enhanced measured intelligence, and a better education than someone whose parents are not of means.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In magazine ads for drugs, drug companies are required to print a massive ammount of text, sometimes a whole page, listing side effects and potential problems. With TV ads, sometimes they do mention a couple side effects, usually dry mouth, but at the bottom of the screen they show the text "see our ad in whatever magazine" where they have that full page of text. I've noticed the magazine "Cooking Light" a few times, presumably becaue the full page ad is dirt cheap. Unless you happen to have a copy of this month's Cooking Light in your house, you have no idea what the full list of side effects and complications are.
If I was in charge, I would get rid of TV perscription drug commercials tomorrow. If you have a real medical problem, go see a trained doctor. If that doctor thinks you need medication, he'll write you a perscription. That's how it worked until just a few years ago. 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!"
-B
agreed. I've been alot more insightful since I started smoking weed, even when I'm not high.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Intelligence is precisely as valuable as its application; no more, no less. If it's used well, it has worth; if it's used poorly or not at all, then it doesn't. Where it comes from is irrelevant.
If so, is it fair to give people an advantage because they have money?
Is it fair to give people an advantage because they can afford a nice car, a business suit, tuition at a prestigious university, blah blah blah?
The bullshit "good things are bad because the rich can afford it and I can't!" thing is cute the first twenty thousand times or so, but really now, it's old. It's funny how things work; they start out unreachably expensive at first and then become more accessible.
Provided, at least, that myopic, jealous Luddites don't get them banned or suppressed because they're offended that they can't reap the benefits on day one like someone who has a few more zeroes in their bank account.
So, what else do you rail against just because some people can benefit from affording it while others can't? Education? Computers? Housing in the good part of town?
-PS
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
But given our culture, penis pills will still outsell brain enlargement pills 10-1
FWIW I've come up with a number of metaphors for my experience of being autistic, and it might be useful to examine these in the context of "cognitive enhancement". There are in the "self-awareness" article directly accessible here (URL may change in the future) or through my domain.
In any event, it may be prudent to go back to the movie "Charly" and ponder his answer to the question, "What do you see?" and the ensuing dialog. Seeing more clearly comes at a price...
I have pretty wide experience with stimulants (and depressants, mucle relaxants, opiates, cannibinoids, etc.) and I found modafinil, AKA Provigil, to be a nice, long, peppy buzz with a relatively mild comedown-depressive effect. I still prefer methylphenidate because of the stronger buzz and shorter-term effects. It's interesting to note that the IOC recently banned it as a performance-enhancing stimulant, and Victor Conte of BALCO has accused Marion Jones of being a user. It's definitely something I prefer to take in the morning or with lunch, though, as the effects last six to eight hours and are not easily overcome by taking depressants (alcohol, marijuana) to counterindicate the effects.
Remember the incident a few years back at the Winter Games in Nagano with the US snowboarder getting in trouble for the pot? He said he smoked grass before he rode because it helped him relax and focus. Now, up till that point, marijuana had not officially been on the Olympic Commitee's list of banned substances, but that all changed when their research concluded that yes indeed, getting stoned may increase athletic performance. So now, if you're an Olympic athlete, marijuana is verboten.
I would add my own personal anecdotes in support of their findings, but I seem to have forgotten them for some reason...
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
not all doctors are liberal with pain killers for terminal patients, or patients that obviously *need* them.
for example
specifically, from the article:
This consensus statement is necessary based on the following facts:
* Undertreatment of pain is a serious problem in the United States, including pain among patients with chronic conditions and those who are critically ill or near death.
* Effective pain management is an integral and important aspect of quality medical care, and pain should be treated aggressively.
* For many patients, opioid analgesics--when used as recommended by established pain management guidelines--are the most effective way to treat their pain, and often the only treatment option that provides significant relief.
* Because opioids are one of several types of controlled substances that have potential for abuse, they are carefully regulated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and other state agencies. For example, a physician must be licensed by State medical authorities and registered with the DEA before prescribing a controlled substance.
* In spite of regulatory controls, drug abusers obtain these and other prescription medications by diverting them from legitimate channels in several ways, including fraud, theft, forged prescriptions, and via unscrupulous health professionals.
----
so while you may know "good" doctors who use every tool at their disposal in their practice, many, many, many people in the US do not.
... hi bingo
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 have a biotech background from school. With a few weeks of research, I can pretty consistently find out more about my condition and the most up-to-date treatments than my doctor knows.
Often, I'm aware of side effects that they don't inform me of, or the drug companies don't inform me of.
The problem is that doctors get far too much advertising from drug companies already, and they aren't always the most critical consumers of information. Moreover, they're frequently in a hurry, trying to minimize costs because of their relationship with insurers, etc.
Ultimatly, people are responsible for their own health. If they're dumb about it, that's their own fault. But I'd like to see Pfizer (to give one example) fined for failing to disclose its sponsorship of research that it published in JAMA. (on female sexual dysfunction, when Pfizer makes Viagra)
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
...and it does work similar to speed.
The problem is that yes, it did sharpen my concentration and make me awake all night(I worked a grave shift in a NOC) but it also made me extremely frustrated, short on patience and irritable. I broke three mice and four keyboards before I stopped taking the stuff.