smart drug help

io.siriya

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මචන්ලා මෙන්න මේ බෙහෙත ගන්න තැනක් දන්නා කවුරු හරි ඉන්නවද ?
දන්නවා නම් PM එකක් දාන්න.මේක ගන්නේ අමාරු එක්සැම් එහෙම ගොඩ දා ගන්න .,:):):)

Narcolepsy medication modafinil is world's first safe 'smart drug'


Increasingly taken by healthy people to improve focus before exams, after a comprehensive review researchers say modafinil is safe in the short-term

Modafinil is prescribed for the sleep disorder narcolepsy, but is bought online without prescription by healthy people, who take it to improve decision-making and problem-solving.




Modafinil is the world’s first safe “smart drug”, researchers at Harvard and Oxford universities have said, after performing a comprehensive review of the drug. They concluded that the drug, which is prescribed for narcolepsy but is increasingly taken without prescription by healthy people, can improve decision- making, problem-solving and possibly even make people think more creatively.

While acknowledging that there was limited information available on the effects of long-term use, the reviewers said that the drug appeared safe to take in the short term, with few side effects and no addictive qualities.

Modafinil has become increasingly common in universities across Britain and the US. Prescribed in the UK as Provigil, it was licensed in 2002 for use as a treatment for narcolepsy - a brain disorder that can cause a person to suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times or to experience chronic pervasive sleepiness and fatigue.
Used without prescription, and bought through easy-to-find websites, modafinil is what is known as a smart drug - used primarily by people wanting to improve their focus before an exam. A poll of Nature journal readers suggested that one in five have used drugs to improve focus, with 44% stating modafinil as their drug of choice. But despite its increasing popularity, there has been little consensus on the extent of modafinil’s effects in healthy, non-sleep-disordered humans.

A new review of 24 of the most recent modafinil studies suggests that the drug has many positive effects in healthy people, including enhancing attention, improving learning and memory and increasing something called “fluid intelligence” - essentially our capacity to solve problems and think creatively. One study also showed that modafinil made tasks seem more pleasurable. The longer and more complex the task tested, the more consistently modafinil conferred cognitive benefits, the authors of the review said.
The review points out that negative effects - including one study that showed that people already classed as creative saw a small drop in creativity - were reported in a small number of tasks, but never consistently. It added that the drug exerts minimal effects on mood, and only causes minor side effects such as nausea, headaches and anxiety, although these were also reported by people who took a placebo drug.

Other proposed smart drugs, such as Ritalin, prescribed for ADHD, have many negative side effects, said Anna-Katharine Brem, co-author of the review, published today in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology. “Modafinil seems to be the first ‘smart drug’ that is reasonably safe for healthy people.”

She emphasised that although the drug is not thought to be addictive, its long-term effects have not been studied. “It would be difficult to get ethical approval to test the effects of taking this drug in the long term,” she said.

Peter Morgan, at Yale School of Medicine, says there is substantial evidence that other cognitive enhancers, such as caffeine or nicotine, have benefits from short-term use, but that those benefits are erased by long-term use, and are rather replaced by deficiencies in cognitive performance. “There is no evidence that modafinil would be any different in this regard,” he said.

The effects of modafinil on the brain are complex and not well understood. One promising theory is that the drug increases blood flow to brain areas serving attention and learning. It might also enhance brain activity in areas thought to act as “conductors”, which manage skills like memory, reasoning and problem-solving.

“Modafinil is the first real example of a smart drug which can genuinely help, for example, with exam preparation,” said Guy Goodwin, president of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. “Previous ethical discussion of such agents has tended to assume extravagant effects before it was clear that there were any. If correct, the present update means the ethical debate is real: how should we classify, condone or condemn a drug that improves human performance in the absence of pre-existing cognitive impairment?”

Goodwin points out that drugs are approved to treat illnesses if they are effective and safe. The manufacturers of modafinil will not attempt to extend the licence to exam doping and there would be no precedent for handling such an application if they did, he said.

“That leaves us in uncharted territory. If there is a demand for modafinil, and people are prepared to pay for it then an illegal market will be created. Whether it becomes a target for political action must depend on how and whether public debate evolves to demand such action.”

Brem and her co-author Ruairidh Battleday think that time for debate has come. “For the first time, we have an agent without serious side effects showing benefits which we haven’t had before.”

“We’re not saying ‘go out and take this drug and your life will be better’,” said Brem. “It is still unlicensed for healthy people - but it is time for a wider debate on how to integrate cognitive enhancement into our lives. We need to explore the ethics, and scientist, politicians and the public need to be involved.”


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http://www.theguardian.com/science/...cation-modafinil-worlds-first-safe-smart-drug
 
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io.siriya

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Jul 16, 2015
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Smart Drug' Modafinil Actually Works, Study Shows

The "smart drug" modafinil actually does work for some people, improving their performance on long and complex tasks, also enhancing decision-making and planning skills, a new review of studies finds.
Modafinil, also known by its brand name Provigil, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat people with sleep disorders such as narcolepsy. But the majority of the drug's users — such as students who take it to study for exams — use it off-label, believing it may help them focus. This is despite the lack of strong evidence to date showing that the drug actually works this way.
"This is the first overview of modafinil's actions in non-sleep-deprived individuals since 2008, and so we were able to include a lot of recent data," Ruairidh McLennan Battleday, a co-author of the new review and a lecturer at the University of Oxford in England, said in a statement. The recent studies of the drug have used more-complex tests of cognition than those employed previously, and found that modafinil indeed enhances thinking, he said.

In particular, the drug affects the "'higher-brain functions that rely on contribution from multiple simple cognitive processes," Battleday said.
The new findings raise ethical concerns about using modafinil, particularly if it gives students an unfair advantage in preparing for or taking tests, the researchers wrote in their review, published online Thursday Aug. 20 in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
Past studies showed mixed results for modafinil's effects on healthy, non-sleep-deprived people. However, for the new paper, the researchers reviewed 24 placebo-controlled studies in healthy people that were published between 1990 and 2014. The studies included more than 700 participants total, and tested a variety of aspects of thinking, including planning and decision-making, flexibility, learning, memory, and creativity. [6 Foods That Are Good for Your Brain]
Modafinil improved only certain features of cognition, the researchers found. In general, the drug appeared to improve what researchers call executive function, the ability to sift through new information and make plans based on it. Modafinil also somewhat enhanced people's ability to pay attention, learn and remember, the researchers found.
But the drug didn't consistently help participants on simple tests of attention, the scientists found. It had "little effect on creativity and motor excitability," they said, and it did not significantly improve people's working memory, flexibility of thought or ability to divide their attention.
Modafinil has few side effects. The 70 percent of the studies that looked for mood and side effects found only some instances of insomnia, headache, stomachache or nausea, all of which were also reported in placebo groups.
"In the face of vanishingly few side effects in these controlled environments, modafinil can be considered a cognitive enhancer," said Anna-Katharine Brem, another co-author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford.
"However, we would like to stress the point that with any method used to enhance cognition, ethical considerations always have to be taken into account: This is an important avenue for future work to explore," Brem said.




http://www.livescience.com/51919-modafil-improves-attention-learning.html