The world’s first true “smart drug” enhances cognition | Hacker News Reader

The world’s first true “smart drug” enhances cognition

qz.com

26 pointsprostoalex24 comments

It's not really new. It's been around for a while.

These are my personal experiences. I only take it about once or twice a week on average. I've heard that you can build up a resistance and it becomes less effective over time. I only take it when I have something I'm working on and want a boost.

It removes the brain fog and gives you a very slight euphoria.

It is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor but that is not the only or primary mechanism that makes it work as a cognitive enhancer. You feel very motivated and focused.

Just make sure to take it first thing in the morning or you won't be able to sleep that night.

It is not addictive and doesn't have a crash.

At least for me, it has a similar effect as when you boost testosterone through exercise with heavy weights or abstaining from any sexual activity (increased motivation and focus).

That being said, the most overlooked and most effective cognitive enhancers is SLEEP!

This is random blogspam. Modafinil has been around for awhile, and there are a lot of non-responders (see also: me).

For real reading on the subject, gwern's nootropics page is a must: http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics

Don't know if a review of past studies really counts as "news". The article is pretty light on information. There are a whole host of extremely effective nootropics out there. Modafinil (Provigil) is just a case of an effectively marketed pharmaceutical with $ behind it.

Modafinil has been around for a long time. Here is an article from 8 years ago that covers its [ab]use in the bay area: http://techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/how-many-of-our-startup-exe...

Funny one-liner in the comments section:

> Stimulants are a credit card - you can buy now, but you're gonna have to pay later. That said, some stimulants do have lower interest rates.

Is it worse than having to sleep well and not take the drug for a given period afterwards?

I actually take Modafinil for narcolepsy. It's not quite as life-changing as the recent articles make it out to be; it doesn't make you smarter or think faster or anything of the sort. It just removes the fog in your brain that builds up when you have too many things competing for attention.

One major downside, however, is it's fairly quick to build up an immunity to, especially if you have it as a medical prescription.

Overall, it's pretty useful, and as far as I know, harmless. Just don't expect it to be like the movie Limitless.

I have a sleep disorder called Hypersomnia, and a lot of us with the condition need this drug to function. I've seen a lot of these types articles lately saying that it's a 'safe smart drug', but I'm wondering what the consequences of this publicity are for those who actually need it, rather than those who just want it.

A robust and vibrant black market into which to sell your excess prescribed medications?

To be serious, generally things like drug manufacturing are relatively elastic on this scale. Unless there is a sudden run on these things so as to create a shortage, the manufacturer will just make more to fill the demand.

This is outright false for many stimulants. The DEA strictly controls the amount of precursor released to the manufacturer's based on their assessment of "legitimate medical needs". This is the case for all scheduled substances that are used in legitimate medical applications. Amphetamine salts and morphine are on that list just the same as Modafinil/provigil.

I'm sure you can guess what (black)market forces do when the supply is artificially constrained.

For modafinil the predominant source for non-prescribed usage is Indian generics manufactures like Sun Pharma. There's little the DEA can do - these are not small underground outfits. Even less so because modafinil can be imported legally into a large number of countries.

Wouldn't that logic argue for an artificial shortage of things like oxycodone too, where there is known to be a large black market of abusers? There certainly is no shortage that I can see; those drugs are cheap and plentiful.

I'm not saying that the regulation you cite doesn't exist (obviously I'm no expert), just that it's apparently ineffective in practice. And I'd expect that to be no different with a hypothetical rise in pseudo-recreational modafinil use.

It also might become harder to get a prescription or get your insurance to pay for it. In a way it could become similar to medical Marijuana.

Highly unlikely for a drug like modafinil where the few potentially adverse side-effects are so exceedingly rare it's not even clear if they are genuine side-effects of modafinil or just unfortunate coincidences during testing. Most over the counter pain killers have well known side-effects that are far more likely to harm you, for example.

Modafinil is easy to order cheaply from India, even to countries like the US.

To many other countries importing the generic versions (mostly Sun Pharma manufactured) is fully legal for personal use.

So if anything, the biggest change brought by the widespread use of it is growing access to a wide range of places to buy it cheaply if it for whatever reason isn't covered by your insurance.

Sketch article + sketch pharma company who pays the best agencies to advertise amphetamines with wide uses. This post needs to go.

They got nearly all of their patients to convert to Nuvigil from Provigil after it went off patent; not sure why they're trying to generate interest in their old meds again. Maybe they're the most available maker.

Just to be clear: the drug in question (Modafinil) is not an amphetamine, and has very different effects than amphetamines even though they are used for the same reasons (enhancing focus when tired).

Just says modafinil is good. Not sure how it's better than amphetamines, as long as you don't feel messed up on speed.

Amphetamines are definitely more effective than modafinil. But as you know, amphetamines are more addictive and the side effects are worse than modafinil. If it's something you want to take on a regular basis, most people are probably better off on modafinil.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, least of all when it comes to the brain. Particularly troublesome with modafinil is that nobody seems to know how it works, or at least not precisely.

We know it's a stimulant of some sort. It appears to act as a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. It increases alertness and resting heart rate. It offers some (temporary) cognitive performance boosts. And it can really help out in a pinch when the user is sleep deprived. The side effects seem a lot more modest and acceptable than those of the amphetamine family, or of Ritalin.

Then there's all we don't know. According to the official literature, for instance, modafinil users do not develop a tolerance to the drug. Unofficially, many users complain of an attenuation of the drug's effectiveness with regular use. Either this 'tolerance' is psychosomatic, or the brain is regulating itself as it would with almost any other dopaminergic drug.

And what are the long-term consequences of using modafinil, either daily or weekly or monthly? We're not really sure. Longitudinal studies are sparse to nonexistent.

> There's no such thing as a free lunch

What about contraception?

> least of all when it comes to the brain

What about melatonin?

"What about melatonin?"

It's very safe in terms of its non-toxicity. But the jury is still out on long-term effects like daytime drowsiness, slowed reaction times, etc., resulting from taking melatonin on a regular and prolonged basis.

I picked contraception and melatonin on purpose because they illustrate two ways to get around Algernon's argument, which is the justification behind the "no free lunch" heuristic in nootropics.

http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics

This article reads like sponsored content in a print magazine. To see it voted to the front page of Hacker News (this readership is the drug's target market) makes it all the more suspicious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com