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Drug Reverses Effects of Sleep Deprivation

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sign-me-up-for-that-study dept.

Ryan O'Rourke writes "According to a study led by Dr. Sam A. Deadwyler and published by the Public Library of Science Biology, a new drug called CX717 developed by Cortex Pharmaceuticals has been shown to reverse the biological and behavioral effects of sleep deprivation. Tests performed on monkeys that were subjected to 30-36 hours of sleep deprivation revealed an average test performance accuracy drop to 63 percent, but that performance was restored to 84 percent after administering CX717. During normal alert conditions, performance accuracy of the animals was improved from an average of 75 percent to 90 percent after an injection of CX717. It is also believed the drug may help prevent or restore memory loss in Alzheimer's patients."

53 of 610 comments (clear)

  1. Coming soon... by lastchance_000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The 167 hour work week!

    1. Re:Coming soon... by Cruciform · · Score: 4, Funny

      In other news:

      EA_spouse spontaneously combusts.

    2. Re:Coming soon... by tumanov · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think we should all be focusing on being able to work better instead of being able to work longer. I've been doing a lot of introspective thinking about how much I work vs. how much actually gets done. And really its only the last 4 hours before a deadline that the work gets done - regardless of how many all-nighters were pulled.

      So while getting read of sleep deprivation effects might be nice, I really just need a drug that'll push me into the last-mile mindset and get me to actually do the amazing work that gets done under pressure. Caffeine and nicotine just don't cut it anymore.

      Heck, like one of the replies to your post mentions, the C in this drug could stand for cocaine and it'd probably have the same effect if it WAS just cocaine, except maybe with the downside of addiction.

      --
      http://tumanov.com
    3. Re:Coming soon... by h4rm0ny · · Score: 3, Insightful


      Heck, like one of the replies to your post mentions, the C in this drug could stand for cocaine and it'd probably have the same effect if it WAS just cocaine, except maybe with the downside of addiction.

      Except that no-body holds the patent on cocaine so its illegal.

      But regarding addiction, at least you can make an argument with cocaine against using it. But this - I can see bosses coming along and expecting employees to just pop one of these in order to pull off a 48 hour overtime to meet a deadline. And you know that some idiot employees will be escalating the standards of company loyalty by using these.

      Honestly, we shouldn't be looking at ways of improving our capacity to work. We not only devote more time to work than our ancestors, but 90% of us aren't even working for ourselves. We have modern technology, farming techniques, transport and communication. One person does what would take a hundred a century ago and our hours are going up?

      We don't need a pill to help us work harder, we just need to adjust our expectations.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    4. Re:Coming soon... by over_exposed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Taking it to stay competitive is a far cry from being mandatory. Here's a stretch: Steroids enhance athletic ability and many athletes take them to stay competitive "Because taht guy did it and the only way to beat him is to take them too."

      What I see happening is substances like this coming out and then people will abuse them. They will become addicted to them. Maybe not physically, but psychologically. "I can't be the best at my job if I don't take these so bottoms up!" As soon as abuse is spotted, public outcry will commence, support groups will spring up and tehy will become as popular as caffeine pills and speed. Not to say that caffeine pills aren't a problem, but they aren't mandatory by any employer and any company that doesn't want a lawsuit will not recommend or even offer them to their employees.

      Your ideas have some merit to them and the "Look, why don't you just take one of these? You're letting us down." situation will probably occur, but it won't be at the company level. It will strictly be from employee to employee, peer to peer. Does your company have NoDoz (tm) in the break room? I doubt it.

      Lastly, you "I crashed my car because they wouldn't sell me this at the garage and I fell asleep at the wheel." situation is not too likely in my mind. I can complain that my doctor didn't give me an adrenaline shot so I couldn't lift the car off of my wife when we got into a wreck. Ok, bad example, but anywho. I don't think you'll ever be able to register a justifiable complaint against someone because they didn't provide you with performance enhancing (because that's essentially what this is) drugs in any situation. You can complain on a medical basis (ie. my doctor wouldn't give me enough insulin and I went into a diabetic coma) but not on a supplemental basis.

      --
      "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
    5. Re:Coming soon... by Hatta · · Score: 4, Informative

      Except that no-body holds the patent on cocaine so its illegal.

      Nope. Cocaine is illegal because of racism. The fear was that "Negro Cocaine Fiends" have an insatiable need for white women. These "Cocainized Niggers" were ostensibly immune to gun fire. The terms in quotes are actual quotes from newspapers.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    6. Re:Coming soon... by ifwm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ritalin/Adderall (your misspelling has me wondering how credible your knowledge is) are simialr to methamphetamine, but what does that have to do with anything? Similar chemicals can behave in VASTLY different ways.

      They ARE NOT however, even remotely similar to cocaine, and by making such a statement, you show how little understanding you have of the chemistry involved.

    7. Re:Coming soon... by linzeal · · Score: 5, Informative

      Mod parent up, the same was done with Lazy Mexicans being used to illegalize marijuana.

      --
      An Education is the Font of All Liberty
  2. More links by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 4, Informative
    NPR had a good piece on this study this morning.

    Here

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  3. Don't ignore the signals. by Poromenos1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't like this. Sleep deprivation effects are there for a reason, to signal that you need to sleep. I can understand if people who can't sleep and need to be alert need to use this (e.g. soldiers in combat), but it's not going to be very good for the average person who needs to do some more work. People need to sleep for various reasons (rest, various chemicals get regenerated, etc). It's not a whim of nature.

    --
    Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
    1. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by Chicane-UK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly the same sort of post I was going to make.

      The body tell us its tired for a reason - it needs good healthy sleep, in order to keep you all in check. People who avoid sleep, people who keep themselves awake with drugs, people who burn the candle at both ends.. they are just setting themselves up for premature death. Just go to sleep!

      As Kramer once said in an episode of Seinfeld.. "Well.. I don't argue with the body Jerry. It's an argument you can't win!"

      Its a comment I whole heartedly agree with! :)

      --
      "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
    2. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by VoidWraith · · Score: 3, Funny

      Of course, Kramer also does things like covering himself in butter, and falling asleep in a hot tub, and installing a garbage disposal in his shower so he can spend more time there, so I wouldn't take all of his advice. =P

    3. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by aduzik · · Score: 4, Interesting
      As someone who suffers from chronic insomnia -- and yeah, I've gone through all the medical nonsense for them to tell me there's nothing wrong with me physically or emotionally -- having a drug to counteract the effects of sleep deprivation sounds like a godsend. For me, all the sleep deprivation effects in the world can't help me fall asleep. For example, I finally fell asleep at about 5:30 this morning and had to get up about an hour and a half later for work.

      Some of us are jealous of the relative ease with which the rest of you fall asleep. (The absolute worst is sharing a hotel room after a long trip, where your traveling companion falls asleep right away, but you don't fall asleep for hours) I'd be happy to at least feel as awake as most people seem. The only time I feel that way is when I can sleep in on the weekends. It's mostly just depressing that I can't be that alert the rest of the week -- you know, when it matters most.

      --
      If it's not one thing it's your mother.
    4. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by cecille · · Score: 5, Interesting

      ha ha...no kidding...my last semester of school we had a huge project where we were working in a lab we could only use at night. Classes, of course, were still during the day, so sleep was something like 9:00-11:00 MWF and 10:30-1:30 TTH. Not a great schedule, but what can you do. Well, about 4 weeks into this (just before exams) I left the lab one morning feeling quite ill. Woke up 4 hours later on the floor of my bathroom. Don't even remember getting home, but from what my friends tell me I was talking about a chipmunk and kept swerving the car. From that point on we decided that it might be good to get a little sleep. Sure enough, 8 hours of solid sleep later I felt like a million. At that point, I think I would have taken something like this gladly, but really...if you're getting that broken, suppressing the symptoms CAN'T be a good idea.

      --
      ...no two people are not on fire.
    5. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by JabberWokky · · Score: 4, Interesting
      (Disclaimer: Drugs are useful. My brother is in the hospital right now, and was likely going to die on Saturday, but is hopefully going to be moved out of the cardiac ICU soon. His life was saved by modern drugs.)

      My favorite oddball drugs that are heavily advertised are the "prevents that uncomfortable full feeling" and "cures fullness".

      We literally live in a time when being full is considered a major problem worthy of heavy advertising to a large chunk of the human population. Consider the fact that the majority of human history is full of people fighting not to starve to death... and now we're worried about being uncomfortably full.

      You can look at that with either bitter sarcasm or wonder at the accomplishments of humanity -- I rotate back and forth. But either way, it's durn funny.

      --
      Evan

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    6. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by Alex+P+Keaton+in+da · · Score: 3, Funny

      The thing about insomnia is, you are never really asleep, but you are never really awake.
      The second rule of fight clib, is don't talk about fight club...
      Anyhow, I always try and fall asleep first if there is a woman sleeping in my bed with me- If she falls asleep first, you are likely to hear a terrific fart (women don't fart less than us, they just hold them, while we are proud of them, and as such they are much stinkier and louder) and once you hear a woman fart, the magic is gone....

      --
      And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
    7. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by Mondoz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "The body tell us its tired for a reason - it needs good healthy sleep, in order to keep you all in check."

      I've often thought about why we still have certain primal signals.
      Pain from obvious sources, for instance.

      I skinned my knee. I know I skinned my knee. I can see it. I'm looking right at it. I just cleaned the darn thing. Yet it still smarts like hell.

      Why can't I turn off the darn pain receptors?
      Why, as a (okay, this next bit is questionable, but just go with it) intelligent being can't I just acknowledge those signals, and snooze them or something?
      I know. It hurts. Leave me alone until I get to the hospital.
      I know, I'm exhausted. Let me get to a bed without falling over.
      I know, I get the picture, send the right chemicals to the right places until I get the right treatment, but until then, just leave me alone!

      My knee tells me it hurts for a reason: it needs attention so it won't get infection.
      Broken bones hurt so they will get mended.
      Neither one know they've been fixed once they've been tended to, so they continue to complain.

      "The body tell us its tired for a reason - it needs good healthy sleep, in order to keep you all in check."

      If this drug can keep us from actually needing to sleep, then it's just like my knee. I don't really need to sleep, but nobody's actually informed my body yet.

      --
      /sig
    8. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      During the period when I was abusing my body to the limit, I could go three or four days with about 8 hours of sleep. And then I'd crash and LOSE A DAY...i.e. pass out around 3pm on friday and wake up sunday morning at 4:00am. I remember falling asleep in my car, right in front of my apartment, because I was too tired to walk up the stairs.

      Passed out once, and my roomate had 5 guys over working on a CS project and it didn't wake me up until 10:30 at night. They'd been there since about 11:00 and I'd been there, asleep, since the night before. And when I say "roommate" I mean we shared a ROOM. I scared the hell out of him when I woke up because they'd thought the big bump in my bed was just a continuation of all the crap piled on top of it. I got up, ate dinner, went right back to sleep.

      I'm still paying for that crap, ten years later. It's totally not worth it.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    9. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by Council · · Score: 4, Interesting

      People need to sleep for various reasons (rest, various chemicals get regenerated, etc).

      From what I understand, there's not a clear consensus on why we need sleep. I mean, it does a number of things, and we've figured many of them out, but as far as biology goes none of them seems to be a deal-breaker. I can easily imagine a large mammal that just walks around eating and doing stuff all day. Why is it that we spend a third of our lives in this comatose state?

      I mean, it's pretty much taken for granted, but when I stop to think about it, it seems pretty damn weird. Imagine an alien that shows up and we say "we need to go, gotta sleep" and they say "why?" and we say "uhhhh, to recharge." "I thought you ate food for energy." "yeah, it's for . . . maintanence?" "what kind?" "not sure. it's just this powerful compulsion." "what are the leading theories? you mean you aren't even sure why you do this every night?" "zzzzzzz."

      Just something interesting that I've given a lot of thought to, especially since I started working unpredicatble night shifts. I wonder if every major mammal needs sleep because we evolved with a light/dark cycle, or if it's just something that it's impossible to construct a complex brain without.

      --
      xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
    10. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The bone and the knee both want you to stop fucking moving so they can heal.

    11. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It may simply be essential for the body to rest, peridocly. When you sleep you don't move very much, of course, your heart rate, breating and such go way down. Your organs fall in to a low activity state, you use less energy, etc.

      Well it may be as simple as that if you go all the time, things start to wear out. There is some justification for this in injuries. If you keep working the thing that is injured, it won't heal, if however you allow it to rest, your body will fix itself. Well some things, like our heart, can't ever really rest as in do nothing, so perhaps sleep is the next best thing, a perodic low state where essential organs can rest.

    12. Re:Don't ignore the signals. by Shaper_pmp · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't mean to be facetious, but have you tried an hour of yoga and a good spliff?

      Or failing that, Russel & Norvig's "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach"? My university-long insomnia cure - never could get more than four pages in before I dropped off...

      --
      Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
  4. Heart attack in a pill by bigwavejas · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Sleep is critical for muscles/ organs to rebuild themselves. If I were Cortex I'd be a bit hesitant to release this drug to the public, without the strictest prescription. Lest they end up like Merck with Vioxx

    --
    "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
  5. Slep deprvaiton .. by Entropy · · Score: 3, Funny

    wuld it lt me imporv my tiping and speeling after 60 ours playing mmporgs?

    --
    The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
  6. Slashdot by saskboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I stopped reading slashdot until 12:00AM that would help with my sleep deprivation, without the use of drugs.

    I have a feeling most other computer users would find the same benefits from turning off their computers at 10:00PM.

    --
    Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
    1. Re:Slashdot by JorDan+Clock · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It worked for me.

      I went for a week where I didn't allow myself to stay on the computer later than 10:00PM because of a severely distorted sleeping schedule, and by the end of the week, I had my schedule back to a very sane 11PM-8AM (I'm a teenager, so that might even be a little on the light side compared to some others, haha.) and I felt considerably more alert, as well as just feeling more healthy.

      I doubt this drug will become a sleep replacement for the average man, but I can see it being used to help at critical times, such as having an emergency amount of it on-board a space shuttle in the event of a prolonged emergency where maximum alertness is necesary or similar scenarios.

      I wouldn't mind having a few doses of this, though, for LAN parties. While everyone else is struggling to drag their mouse across their mousepad, I'll still be zipping around, even long after the Bawls run out.

  7. In the future... by lxs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...we'll all be working 36 hour shifts.

    1. Re:In the future... by Crag · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If I could work one 40 hour shift a week, and have the rest of the week off, I'd be thrilled. Even more so if science finds a way to reduce my weekly sleep time without negative health consequences.

  8. great! now I can work longer... by utexaspunk · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...so i can make more money. ...so i can buy more cx717 ...so i can work longer. ...so i can make more money ...so i can buy more cx717 ...so i can...

  9. Is the trademarked name going to be by joeflies · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Methamphetamine?

  10. Oh boy by bogie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The military is going to love this.

    Expect Cortex's IP to be bought the us mil any second now.

    Of course the real fun will be when they discover that taking this for months and sleeping 1 hour a night, you go insane and think your a humming bee.

    --
    If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
    1. Re:Oh boy by MmmmAqua · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have never met anyone in the Army who had any trouble falling asleep any time, anywhere. My experience is limited to cavalry and infantry, though, so maybe that's just something about combat arms troops. Over the course of a year in Baghdad, I was able to fall asleep in some surprising situations.

      Of course, when going on extended missions, we also had the option of asking the platoon medics for stimulants. I don't remember what the name of the drug was, but one little white pill kept you up and alert for about two days. You did crash pretty hard after that. Anyway, while there may be some interest in the military for this drug, its use won't be anywhere near as prevalent as you seem to think. The Army likes its combat units to be operationally ready all the time, but also keeps mission durations and objectives as tight as possible to minimize battle fatigue and risk of combat losses. Sometimes you can't avoid a mission that lasts for a week, and in those (relatively rare - I only remember doing maybe a dozen of those two-day-plus missions over a year) situations, a drug to mitigate sleep-dep would be a godsend.

      --
      Arr! The laws of physics be a harsh mistress!
  11. Soon to follow: beverages by I_am_Rambi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Watch, coffee and pop will soon have versions of with this drug and without this drug. Soon the human race will become dependant on this just as we are on caffinee.

  12. Interesting... by ovit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I read somewhere that a significant biologic reason for sleep was simply that animals who laid down in a dark place for half the time had an evolutionary advantage over thos who didn't (it's about 50% harder to be eaten by a predator if 50% of your time your asleep)...

    Rather than do the usual slashdot "Science is EViL" thing, why not really think about the potential here...

    Yes, they will probably discover that over use of this has some serious side effect, but all that means is that it shouldn't be over used... It does not mean that we all need to run an hide...

    For being a site full of geeks this place is remarkably anti science sometimes...

    --
    hard core geek-ware
    1. Re:Interesting... by An+Onerous+Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You read wrong. The problem is, there is a direct, linear correlation between body size and amount of time spent sleeping, that has nothing to do with whether one is predator or prey. For example, mice spend the vast majority of their time asleep, while cats spend a good 75% of their time asleep. When you get up to human sized creatures, you expect to see them spend about a third of their life asleep. Elephants sleep about four hours a night. What they do with all those long, dark hours is anybody's guess.

      The question of why we sleep is still a bit of a mystery to me, but if you're simply looking at it as "defense from predators", you're going to fundamentally misunderstand the phenomenon.

      --

      You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!

    2. Re:Interesting... by bigtangringo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh, you're also dead wrong about the size thing, from the same article I just posted:
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/artic les/whatissleep.shtml

      Species Average total sleep time per day
      Python 18 hrs
      Tiger 15.8 hrs
      Cat 12.1 hrs
      Chimpanzee 9.7 hrs
      Sheep 3.8 hrs
      African elephant 3.3 hrs
      Giraffe 1.9 hr

      --
      Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
    3. Re:Interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're missing the fact that herbivores sleep a lot less than carnivores or omnivores, simply because they need longer feeding hours to maintain an adequate nutritional intake.

      The larger mammals tend to be herbivores simply because carnivores require a huge prey population for a stable population (eg. to support a pack of 20 breeding wolves, you might require a group of 200 breeding caribou). Once large carnivores get over a certain size they couldn't effectively form a stable breeding population because they would require a huge stable prey population to sustain them. This counts against them in terms of evolutionary success.

      Because of this quirk, our larger mammals are almost invariably herbivores, and this complicates the issue of sleep.

      To get a clearer idea, it would be better to separate herbivores from carnivores/omnivores, and plot body size versus sleep requirements for both.
      It could be that the trend still holds, and the analysis has probably already been done, but you should be careful not to forget that there are many other complicating factors which influence sleep patterns, including predator patterns, environment and feeding types :)

  13. EA by wikkiewikkie · · Score: 5, Funny

    In related news, productivity at EA is up 44%.

  14. Richie Rich foretold this by L.+VeGas · · Score: 3, Funny

    I had a Richie Rich comic book, and his dad took a drug EXACTLY LIKE THIS. And he became EVIL. No kidding.

    Richie Rich: harbinger of the future.

    --
    Best Windows Freeware
  15. Sometimes it's good to forget. by PIPBoy3000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was just thinking this morning as I punched in the old door combination for the hundredth time that it would be nice if that memory vanished a bit more quickly.

    Your brain already does a pretty good job at figuring out what memories should be stored strongly and which ones should be left to fade away. It's almost certainly possible to override that mechanism, but you'll probably end up with incredibly vivid memories of things that aren't very relevant.

    Imagine if I popped these pills before studying for organic chemistry in college. Now I'd be having flashbacks of acid/base interactions and other useless trivia while I try to go about my daily job.

  16. Misleading summary, article by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Revision: "reverse [some of] the biological and behavioral effects of sleep deprivation"

    This drug also increased test performance in the control group. The increase in test performance was slightly more pronounced in the sleep-deprived group.

    Caffeine would likely show similar results, as would nasal decongestants and stimulant diet pills (both of which are amphetamines).

    Hell, for that matter, I bet crystal meth, in low doses, would produce the same effect.

    Meh, wake me up when the real fix for sleep deprivation is discovered... oh, wait...

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  17. Women everywhere moan by Alex+P+Keaton+in+da · · Score: 5, Funny

    Women everywhere moan.... as their number two excuse, right after I have a headache, becomes scientifically irrelevant....
    I'm too tired honey....

    --
    And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
  18. It's a trick: by dsginter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone, I did some digging and found that this "CX717" is simply this.

    --
    More
  19. This is what the world needs! by Evolt's+RonL. · · Score: 3, Funny

    More efficient monkeys! I took the grandkids to the zoo recently and the dang monkeys were only operating at 68% effectiveness. Stupid zoo. A little money spent on ex717 and those monkeys could easily have been an extra 15-20% more effective! Hmmmm, I imagine they'll need a bigger dose for the hippo though.

  20. I have ridden the mighty moon worm! by pizen · · Score: 3, Funny

    Soon the human race will become dependant on this just as we are on caffinee.

    So when do I get my sweet glowing blue eyes?

  21. Nothing new by Frangible · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Amphetamines have been around for what, 100 years or so? Dextroamphetamine is the Air Force's "go pill" and is quite effective at keeping someone alert when they should be sleeping.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1462046 8&query_hl=4

    While they argue that this drug is different because of possibly less abuse potential (yet have no data to back that assertation up with, such as self-reinforcing studies in animals), I think the real reason is because pharmaceutical patents only last 20 years. As far as abuse potential goes, addiction is usually characterized by increased dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens, of which amphetamine activates indirectly; I have seen no evidence as to whether or not CX717 will indirectly raise dopamine levels in that region of the brain as well.

    They may claim they're not stimulants, but the action is that of binding to receptors and releasing a neurotransmitter called glutamate. Is that really so different than stimulants binding to a receptor and releasing norepinephrine, another neurotransmitter?

    From the journal article, revealed increased activity in prefrontal cortex, dorsal striatum, and medial temporal lobe (including hippocampus) that was significantly enhanced over normal alert conditions following administration of CX717. You would see similar increases in brain activity following the administration of amphetamine as well.

    Furthermore, high levels of glutamate have neurotoxic properties: In excess, glutamate causes neuronal damage and eventual cell death, particularly when NMDA receptors are activated.

    Somehow though, I think the combination of a pharmaceutical company making $2.00 in profit per pill combined with possibly less of an abuse potential or political incorrectness of usage will make this drug preferred in spite of whatever risks it carries.

    Of course, maybe I'm just bitter and skeptical in my old age.

  22. Something funny from the summary by einhverfr · · Score: 4, Funny

    I noted that the summary stated that it could restore memory loss in Alzheimer's patients.

    Darn'd grandma. Her memory is improving again. Time to restore her memory loss.......

    Ok, this is sort of scary....

    --

    LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
  23. Yay! by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Funny
    Orlando, FL - Gary Buzzeye has been taking CX717 for seven months now, and says he gets by on two hours of sleep a week.

    "It's absolutely fantastic." Buzzeye says as he scrapes away the skin around his eyes with a rusty nail-puller. "I've never felt better, and my productivity is way up." When asked if there were any side-effects, Buzzeye replied "None whatsoever. Since I killed my wife and sold my children to Satan, who happens to live two doors down, things have been great. Now if I could only get the snakes to stop eating my feet, I'd be one hundred percent. Oh, could you get the door, I think it's Napoleon. He's a real bitch, and he likes to steal my aluminum brainguard."

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  24. Why in the world would you say that? by QMO · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Except that no-body holds the patent on cocaine so its illegal."

    I can't believe that reasoning.

    First: Asprin and Alcohol aren't patented, and aren't illegal.

    Second: Lots of patented drugs are VERY illegal. (It takes a lot of money, time, red tape, and testing to get a new patented drug to the point where it is even legal to test on people.)

    But then you say:
    "We don't need a pill to help us work harder, we just need to adjust our expectations."

    Which I totally agree with.

    --
    Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
    1. Re:Why in the world would you say that? by h4rm0ny · · Score: 5, Informative


      I've seen you repeat this several times now - in what way does Ritalin "have the same effects" as speed?

      Both Ritalin (called Methylphenidate in its non-brand name) and Speed (phenylisopropylamine) operate in a similar manner - both prevent the reabsorbtion of monoamine transporters for dopamine and norepinephrine which results in increased amounts of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain. This promotes nerve impulse transmission in neurons that have those receptors. The effect is something you're probably familiar with (either through experience or second-hand).

      Likewise you can get the same high from snorting ritalin (powder it first unless you have biiig nostrils) as you can from speed, and you can get addicted to it too. Both are also used by students and workers desperate to keep focused on a project in that final night of panic. It's just the same as speed for practical purposes. Ritalin doesn't come in huge dosages (per pill), but then they are prescribing it to children.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    2. Re:Why in the world would you say that? by h4rm0ny · · Score: 3, Insightful


      That the other is prescription drug controlled by medical experts who have the necessary knowledge about it's effects and dosage, and the other is substance of unsure purity and blending sold by random crooks with no medical background whatsoever?

      I agree. But the downside has relatively little to do with the drug itself and rather its legality. But that was your point too, so perhaps we're just agreeing with each other loudly. :)

      Regarding this discrepancy between the two drugs' similarity yet their differing legal status, I think it happened something like this:

      In the early sixties, Speed was outlawed and the police cracked down on it. This was accompanied by all the usual propaganda and hoo-ha, demonising Speed as a terrible evil. Later however, drug companies saw an opportunity to make money from speed but you can't suddenly turn round and say "You know that terrible stuff that will destroy your children, well it's okay if we give it to them." People would smell a rat.

      So something that has a very similar effect is patented, marketed and in comes the money. But you know, Ritalin is spelt differently to Speed, so nobody panics about their children being fed it.

      I normally avoid using any personal information in a discussion on /., anecdotal evidence and all that, but it might be interesting to know that I personally don't smoke, drink alcohol or drink coffee, tea, anything fizzy or containing aspartame or akasulfame-k. As far as I'm concerned, speed, ritalin, cocaine or prozac - all look pretty dodgy to me. But I do like to discuss things openly, and the pharmaceutical industry doesn't like that game at all.

      My £0.02.

      -H.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
  25. Sleep and Orgasm. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 3, Funny
    Sexual energy is the base form of energy which we need to function properly and generally exist. It recharges during sleep, drawn from the universe and entering in through the sexual center just below the stomach. (Or so it is said in various ways by various sources.)

    In this society, we are powerfully encouraged to discharge that energy as quickly as possible through orgasm. According to some, sexual energy, once thus spent, is collected and consumed by etheric beings who exist in a higher level of reality and keep the human race like cattle for this purpose, (among others). True or not, you don't get to use your sexual energy once it's been given up through orgasm.

    On the other hand, sexual energy can also be saved up and used in other ways. People who have a lot of regular sex tend to be exhausted and dim behind the eyes because their primary source of 'income' energy is much reduced. One's level of awareness and the availability of energy are directly linked to one another.

    This is not to say that having orgasms is 'bad'. Physical sex is part of why we all came to this reality. It's fun, and it can be used to link in very powerful ways to other people, as well as link to otherwise difficult to access knowledge. But for the most part, people are instructed by the media to channel away their sexual energy immediately before it can be effectively used for anything else. In the morning, people often wake up in states of heightened arousal. This has nothing to do with holding back urination as conventional medicine tells us, (you don't get a woody any other time during the day when you need to 'go'. And it happens for women as well, who don't have the same plumbing) Sexual energy is there to be used as you wish.

    In any case, sleep is the way this energy finds its way into us from the Universal source. Drugs which prevent sleep are, I assume, accessing stored wells of energy, which cannot last forever. There is a reason why they say, "Speed Kills". --Of course, there are other ways in which to draw energy from the world around us other than sleep, including drawing energy from the earth through grounding meditations and exercises, (good!) Eating food and consuming life force, (standard), energetic vampirism through direct and indirect methods of torturing others, (nasty and ultimately self-destructive.). But above all of these, Sexual energy is potent and pure and freely available to anybody who can catch 40 winks.


    -FL

  26. Sounds like a bunch of quacks to me by WebCowboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    There have been studies that suggest sleep is simply a method for the brain to purge itself of "weak memories"

    If any medical person was to suggest that I would immediately dismiss him as a total quack. There is NO SUCH THING as an outside environmental influence that affects just one portion of the body. "Cleaning up the clutter" in your brain is only one effect of sleep. Your brain isn't a computer hard drive that needs defragging every night--it is much more complex than that and what affects the brain can affect any and all other parts of the body. There are autonomic responses that change when the brain is asleep vs. awake, changes to hormone levels, etc. that without doubt promote regeneration of the body. Sure, you can rest your skeletal muscles and let them rebuild without actually sleeping, but you cannot consciously control your heartbeat, muscles controlling your GI tract, the levels of hormones in your bloodstream and so on, so how can you expect to simulate the effects of sleep without actually sleeping?

    Beyond that, even if sleep was only about the brain, can you imagine the psychological effects of an accumulation of "weak memories" or excessively prolonged conscious brain activity? At best I think you'd end up being an ADD-like basket case. At worst you could go clinically insane.

    I think that should such a drug that counteracts the symptoms of sleep deprivation become widely available those who abuse it would reveal to us a whole host of side effects related to lack of sleep never before encountered. Apart from degrading mental health I think that people would physically age faster without sleep. Look at drug addicts today-sometimes they start out as "normal", smart, professional people that fro some reason get caught in an addiction. Early in the addiction they can function amazingly well with little or no sleep, but they slowly degrade as they fry their brains. While they are hooked these addicts age twice as fast as normal--even if they never end up on the street addicts in their 30s look like they are 50.

    This drug is like methadone--it is cocaine or speed without the highly addictive properties and some of the other adverse side effects. I believe that further, long-term/multi-year studies would reveal that the test animals might show good performance initially, but in a few years they'd look like junkies--even if they are still more mentally alert. I forsee similar results in humans--they might be very productive and alert compard to heroin addicts, but they'll look just as old and worn out.