Cognitive Enhancement Drugs 592
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."
Mentat (Score:5, Interesting)
~Thufir
Re:Mentat (Score:5, Informative)
Celebrex? (Score:2)
--grendel drago
Re:Celebrex? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Celebrex? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Celebrex? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Celebrex? (Score:4, Insightful)
doctors are afraid to precribe narcotic pain killers. which, if used as directed, only have constipation as a long-term side effect, and possible addiction.
and for a cancer patient - who the hell cares if they get addicted to percocet?
Re:Celebrex? (Score:5, Interesting)
for example [ama-assn.org]
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.
Re:Celebrex? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Celebrex? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's my body, I think I do in fact have a right to decide what's going to go into it. And you're seriously overestimating most doctors grasp of pharmacology. It's just one aspect of many, many, things they have to attempt to keep up with. It's not that difficult for someone with even a moderate background in the area who has out of interest in their condition spent time druging through databases to
Re:Celebrex? (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Milk Plus (Score:3, Funny)
Reminds me of Xenocide (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Reminds me of Xenocide (Score:4, Funny)
Anyone who reads Slashdot regularly has no need to imagine it....
Re:Mentat (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mentat (Score:5, Funny)
Beer is the painkiller.
And beer is the little drink that brings total satisfaction.
I will drink my beer.
I will permit it to pass through me.
And where the beer has gone there will be nothing.
Only a hangover will remain.
Does this mean... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does this mean... (Score:3, Funny)
World Bridge Federation (Score:5, Informative)
Drug Tests (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Drug Tests (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Drug Tests (Score:3, Informative)
Classic Urban Legend (Score:3, Interesting)
A college student is obsessing about his final exams. In the week before his big exam, he starts staying up all night to cram, pounding down pots of coffee. Finally, he starts taking amphetamines to stay wired. He has a marathon 48-hour study session right before his big final, and finally heads down to take the big test.
He's in the zone. He knows every answer and remembers every last detail. He flies through his exam, writing voluminous essays, and heads back to his ro
They seem to be lacking information. (Score:2, Insightful)
Caffine wakes you up, gives you more energy, speeds up your metabolism, and gives you a headache. Plus, it's been in use for years.
Excuse me, I need to go drink more Bawls now.
Re:They seem to be lacking information. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They seem to be lacking information. (Score:3, Insightful)
been there done that (Score:2)
debasement of human existence in order to "treat" a "disease" that's just an excuse for bad parenting.
Re:been there done that (Score:4, Interesting)
A psych prof of mine, Dr. Wilma Marshall, explained to me that Ritalin was like Cocaine for kids.
In a related story I worked with this guy who stole his kids Ritalin for a trip once. Said the exacty same thing - it's like Cocaine without the hangover the next day.
Does cocaine make people smarter?
Re:been there done that (Score:4, Funny)
They certainly seem to think so, don't they.
Re:been there done that (Score:3, Funny)
I'm Rick James, Bitch.
Re:been there done that (Score:2)
Re:been there done that (Score:4, Insightful)
Cocaine and all of its stimulant cousins don't make you smarter, but they focus all of your attention on one thing. Your nervous system gets turned up a notch and you're ready to get stuff done. I know of people smoking meth and cleaning their apartment for 14 hours.
South Park does a great parody about ADD. The test to see if the 8 year old kids have ADD is the doctor reading all of Moby Dick. If the kids don't pay attention to all of it, they have ADD and need Ritalin.
-B
Mental clutter and task obsessiveness? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mental clutter and task obsessiveness? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is dangerous (Score:2, Interesting)
Is intelligence worth anything? If so, is it fair to give people an advantage because they have money?
Mark my words, this is a dawn of a new era.
we've been able to buy "intelligence" for millenia (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:we've been able to buy "intelligence" for mille (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you are looking at it the wrong way; IQ is only an inaccurate measure of intelligence, however it's a very accurate measure of success.
So look at this way, the parents are more successful, because of their intelligence, and the corresponding indicator of that intelligence would be the IQ.
Re:we've been able to buy "intelligence" for mille (Score:3, Insightful)
Couldn't you also argue that if your parents have the means, they probably got them them due to intelligence? And that you inherited your intelligence from them genetically?
I think we can agree that there's a correlation, but I don't think there's enough evidence to prove causation (in either direction).
Re:This is dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:This is dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
There are giant obvious problems with these drugs, imho likely due to them ignoring the current results of evolution.
But saying that dumb people should be evolutionary unsuccessful is bullshit eugenics. There's no "should". Evolutionarily successful people are evolutionarily successful. If you want evolution to prove some kind of worthiness of some kind of trait, that's your vanity speaking.
Re:This is dangerous (Score:3, Interesting)
A good point. Suppose you evolved to be so intelligent that you became depressed by the state of the world and killed yourself. Then being dumber would be an evolutionary advantage :-]
Or, in a somewhat relevant scenario, we evolve en
There's always a price. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:There's always a price. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:There's always a price. (Score:2)
In technical terms, that is called a "hangover".
Re:There's always a price. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:There's always a price. (Score:3, Insightful)
Did she explain why? AFAICT the only thing wrong with that word is that it was used by benighted people in the benighted past.... but maybe I am missing something.
Re:There's always a price. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, yes, but unlike Newton's Laws, in medicine the reaction is often neither equal nor opposite. Sometimes the price is small compared to the benefit. 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.
There is no physical law that requires the aftereffects or side effects of a performance-enhancing drug to be severe in proportion to the benefit. Nor, of course, is there a law that requires them to be mild -- if you're interested in this sort of thing you need to evaluate the risks and benefits on a case-by-case basis and wait for as long as your comfort level dictates to watch for any long-term effects.
To use one of the article's drugs as an example: for a while I was taking modafinil for a sleep disorder (which I no longer have, happily.) The only negative side effect I found was that if I took it in the morning, my eyes were a bit on the dry side by the end of the day. That's a small price to pay for being awake and alert. Are there other long-term effects that will only appear years after the fact? Maybe, but I'll take my chances.
Buffered Aspirin (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:There's always a price. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not always. Thought experiment: you break your leg, then you're faced with the choice of:
No offense, but that's a non-specific platitude and sounds like a boring life.A. Use typical medical technology to fix it with a cast
B. Avoid the use of the cast and accept the broken leg. After all, like all medicine, there will probably be "a price" (there will be a monetary cost, but I don't think that's the kind of price you were talking about)
Like coffee, cognitive enhancements should be treated that same way we treat all things that may be used to ehnance our quality of life - we establish a reasonable level of "moderation" and go with that, always being careful to watch for potential pitfalls. Don't write them off out of hand just because they are new and unfamiliar.
Re:There's always a price. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not necessarily the whole answer.... it could be that until recently (evolutionarily speaking) there wasn't that much more to be gained by being a genius. If your whole life consists of foraging for grubs or subsistence farming, being too smart could even be quite a detriment (you'd be at risk of going crazy fro
OCD Obsessive compulsive disorder (Score:3, Interesting)
Chess (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chess (Score:3, Informative)
Overclocking the brain (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see a direct connection between the two articles, but perhaps someone more informed about neurochemistry could point one out.
Piracetam (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Piracetam (Score:3, Informative)
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, wh
Re:Piracetam: thumbs up, Modafinil: thumbs down (Score:4, Interesting)
Pfft (Score:3, Funny)
Deepness in the Sky (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry a bit obscure
wait 10 years and 10 million doses (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:wait 10 years and 10 million doses (Score:2, Interesting)
It will be too late, you'll be looking for a new job after being replaced by someone with an IQ of 345 who finished all of your projects while waiting to be interviewed.
The drug will probably cost $2000 a month, so its unlikely you'd be able to afford it on unemployment in order to catch up.
Re:wait 10 years and 10 million doses (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong focus (Score:2)
And no, caffeine is not the answer for this.
amp up (Score:2, Insightful)
Evoked Potential Multimedia Biofeedback (Score:3, Interesting)
The way it would work is this:
A neural network is set up to control a audio-visual environment. You dynamically measure IQ via the proxy of the (highly correlated) evoked potential response of the subject and backpropagate an error signal through the multimedia neural net inversely proportional to the dynamic IQ of the subject.
Simple in concept. With a little luck we'd have people whose brains had been stimulated to a high IQ state without ending up with something like the lawnmowerman taking over slashdot.
EA Games (Score:2, Funny)
All I am is my brain... (Score:3, Insightful)
Given this (personal) view who and what I am, I am very very careful of looking after of my brain, for it is all I am. I have done drugs, I have found their effects on my consciousness somewhat,.. novel... but I don't trust that we know enough to mess with the underlying substrate of what makes Me. A small injury to my frontal lobe can turn into OCD. These Cognitive "enhancement" drugs may sound like overclocking your brain to some... but how many key rings have been made from CPUs by over enthusiastic overclockers...
I will leave this stuff to the psyconauts... if that are happy, smart and enjoying there new consciousness at the age of 80... then fine... but I know that the default configuration of my brain is tried and tested over 100,000s of years... I know it will still be (with good care of my body that feeds it) in good working order until my body packs it in from cancer/heart disease, what have you...
2c
Re:All I am is my brain... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, the link between brain and mind, tha
What will you do when you feel your brain aging? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you expect to start feeling your brain age, what are the likely consequences of such an expectation?
feel brain age -> believe getting old -> start acting old -> start bad posture -> start bad health
Here's another:
feel brain age -> notice normal brain underperformance -> expect brain to underperform -> brain underperforms
Technically speaking, the question is both an embedded hy [creonline.com]
LSD (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Been there (Score:2)
To point (though abused in context), hearing aids can interfere significantly with the hearing of a non-impared individual rather than granting super-human capability.
Short/long term (Score:2)
I'm willing to bet you would either be or at least feel stupider when you stopped taking them though. Seems like the body has many reactions like that.
Take dopamine or melatonin boosting drugs and your body produces less of these naturally
Cognitive drugs and memory (Score:3, Funny)
Damn.
I doubt these would end up like steroids... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think most people don't have the same kind of feelings about intelligence, because we regard it as an inborn thing. Either you're smart or you're not, and that's all there is too it, right?
I know that my intellect takes a lot of work to maintain. I'm quick, but my short-term memory isn't great and my logical abilitiy isn't much above average. I have to work very hard to keep my brain in a state where I can program computers, solve math in my head, remember things, and generally keep my nickname as "that smart guy." I may be predisposed to intelligence, but that doesn't mean that I can slack off.
In the US at least, I doubt we'd ever see "brain testing" because people don't regard intelligence as something you can build, unlike physical aptitude. People don't associate that weird puritanical "honor"-relationship with Matheletes.
This far into a thread on mind-enhancing drugs... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This far into a thread on mind-enhancing drugs. (Score:3, Informative)
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.
e,n|_@rge yuor bra1n (Score:5, Funny)
Dubya (Score:3, Funny)
Similar Drugs With Different Interactions (Score:3, Interesting)
There might be some utility in developing these new drugs further, since they may not interact with Intervol, which is sometimes a problem.
Nootropics (Score:3, Interesting)
Useful to compare/contrast with autism? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [bellsouthpwp.net] (URL may change in the future) or through my domain [davespicer.org].
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...
On Tinkering with the Human Condition (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be possible to optimize human beings for some particular task using drugs of various sorts - but what criterion will we use to determine what changes we will make?
I envisage a sort of corporate dystopia, in which people optomize themselves to maximize their utility to their employers, altering their own brain chemistry to make themselves into perfect employees - we can argue what traits such a human tool would have, but they're probably not very laudable.
On the other hand, people ought to be able to have any neurochemistry they want; under more generally egalitarian social arrangements, such drugs would simply enable people to do that, which would be good.
Maybe I've just been reading too much science fiction.
Grounding and Freeing Drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
If people start using memory and attention enhancing drugs to ground themselves more in reality and their current world view/direction, I think it's important that people also start using psychedelics and other mentally-opening/freeing drugs to make sure they don't get bogged down in the now-now-now.
Basically psychedelics allow you an escape from grounding forces (like attention, or memory) to go and question important, overarching meta-questions -- where am I going? what does the world mean and what's my place in it? who are my friends and how do I feel about them? how do I feel about the future? etc. These would be a good counter-balance to the mind-enhacing drugs, which help you achieve goals formed from reflection upon your insight, more efficiently.
I'm not really advocating psychedelic drug use for everyone in general (well, not in this post at least, heh). But as "regular", not cognitively-enhanced people we supposedly have some sort of balance of 'free-thought' with which we question and reflect on Big, Important Matters and 'attentive/constrained thought' with which we make short-term goals happen. The two are a feedback process. If we're shifting the balance by increasing the duraction of our 'attentive/constrained thought', we need to have a way of increasing the intensity of our 'free-thought' so that we don't loose sight of the big picture.
Missing Option... (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
I tried Modafinil.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Superhuman strength. (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Muscles are controlled by neurons.
2) At any given time, only a fraction of muscle fibers are available in a given muscle. This is due to some neurons having high thresholds from never being used or used infrequently. The ratio of total fibers/useable fibers is called "neuromuscular efficiency", and the mechanism by which thresholds are lowered is called the "Hebbian Mechanism". (for this discussion, I am speaking mainly of fast-twitch fibers).
3) It's possible to train and open up new neurons through heavy strength training, such as Powerlifting/Olympic Weightlifting (note: not Bodybuilding).
4) Strength athletes (high jumpers, sprinters, weightlifters, powerlifters) in general have a higher degree of NM efficiency than untrained individuals (somewhere along the lines of 30-50% as opposed to 5%-10%). Case in point- Judd Biasotto, former powerlifter who, at a bodyweight of 132, bench pressed over 300 lbs. and squatted over 600 lbs. In some extreme life or death cases, effciency can be increased dramatically, by either drugs(PCP), adrenaline(mothers lifting cars on their sides to save their children trapped underneath), or mental disease. Basically, you can lift a car, your brain either
a) doesn't know or
b) won't let you.
5) Increasing NM efficiency involves lowering present neural thresholds, making an activity "easier" in terms of neural drive, and allowing new neurons/muscle fibers to be recruited.
6) Some of the drugs mentioned in the article strengthen neural connections.
7) If these drugs affect motor neurons in the body as well, the thresholds for these neurons would be greatly lowered, and neuromuscular efficiency would increase dramatically, maybe past reachable norms. (>50%) (hell, if they affect motor neurons as well as neurons in the brain, any technical skill could be used as an example).
8) Net result: dramatic increases in strength in a relatively short amount of time, without a significant increase in bodyweight. The ability to exert more force would come from using nearly all the available fibers in an existing muscle.
9) ???
10) Profit!
I, for one, welcome our Volvo lifting overlords.
Re:All I can say is... (Score:2)
Re:All I can say is... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:All I can say is... (Score:2)
Re:All I can say is... (Score:2)
Perhaps you have no problem with your long term memory for the exact reason that everything doesn't get dumped into it. Think of it like a pagefile. The less of them you have, the faster everything goes.
Of course, you could take this and remember the number of ceiling tiles in your janators closet from last week, and it might take you 3 minutes
Re:All I can say is... (Score:2, Funny)
Lack thereof... (Score:3, Interesting)
--grendel drago
Re:Lack thereof... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, either that or somebody switched your coffee with decaf. My ex-fiancee did that to me once
Re:cannabis (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:cannabis (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So now they are making... (Score:2, Funny)
But then Nancy Reagan messed that all up.
Re:Drug testing for the SATs ??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Adderall [wikipedia.org], a drug meant to treat ADD and ADHD, is one of the most commonly abused drugs. Its purpose is to help people with disabilities "focus" better, but it is more often than not used by people who don't even have mental handicaps, increasing test scores and giving some students an unfair advantage. This highly addictive drug, as with most drugs, requires more usage to get the same buzz or energy boost as prev
Re:The Real Dope on Smart Drugs (Score:4, Informative)
heh, I guess all the world must be coffee drinkers, for green tea already has the caffeine and I-theanine together! Use water just under boiling for green tea. Go to a Chinese tea shop/pharmacy and ask for a rich, strong green tea.
Re:LSD (Score:3, Informative)
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