The Frontal Cortex : The Hidden Cost of Smart Drugs | Hacker News Reader

The Frontal Cortex : The Hidden Cost of Smart Drugs

scienceblogs.com

32 pointsprakash14 comments

The foundation for this post is the superstitious belief that all things balance out: i.e. that dramatically increased focus must mean dramatically decreased creativity. Quote: "It makes perfect sense that such a cognitive trade-off would exist." As Errol Morris said, nothing is so obvious that it's obvious.

On the other hand, there are mounds of anecdotal evidence (and possibly some data) indicating that dopaminergic drugs like Ritalin, meth and cocaine have negative effects on original thinking; and likewise that drugs like LSD or psilocybin seem to have positive effects on the same.

(Note that I say original thinking, which doesn't necessarily mean creatively worthwhile thinking.)

My own pet theory on dopaminergics is that the constant stimulation of the pleasure response reduces our ability to evaluate ideas and distinguish between a good one and a bad one, or a fun activity and a boring one. This would help explain punding behavior (i.e. "tweaking") and "cocaine ideas", as well as the utility in getting school children to pay attention. It would also suggest that modafinil, which lacks this stimulation, wouldn't have negative effects on original thinking.

What exactly is original thinking, and what kind of "creatively worthwhile thinking" is not original? I was going to disagree with you, but what you said is too vague for me to even know whether I disagree or agree.

Original thinking being defined by novelty: new ideas and synthesis. Creatively worthwhile meaning good, usable, aesthetically sound, having value beyond novelty. The latter is a subset of the former. Or: not all new ideas are good ideas.

Ritalin != Provigil. I've tried adderall, which is similar enough to Ritalin, and can anecdotally confirm the article's claim that creativity is reduced while on the drug. But, Provigil's mechanism is completely different, and I don't think you can make the same claim about it from anecdotal evidence just because they both keep you awake. Adderall and its friends do far more than that.

And if the same claim could be made of Provigil, at best the article's conclusion could be: There is a time and place for everything.

Moreover, it's quite obvious from the article that the author hasn't actually tried it to justify those comments. I've not tried Ritalin and such, but I have tried Modafinil. Though there is certainly some downside to the sometimes a little intense high of it, it definitely has been useful at times (such as when I was working a full-time job and starting up my company in the evening!)

I haven't noticed any issues with creativity on Modafinil. If anything, I find that I think of more interesting answers than otherwise - as if my lateral thinking was enhanced rather than diminished.

Daniel

I would have to agree with swombat. As with so many medical topics, many people instinctively respond without knowing anything about the published literature, let alone even the broad characteristics of the thing they are talking about.

Ritalin is a stimulant, like speed or caffeine. They are broad-acting jackhammers that boost your entire system, including your heart for that matter. Not exactly something to take lightly.

Modafinil affects the chemicals that the brain uses to regulate wakefulness, and surprise surprise many of us sleeping too little are actually a little bit sleepy even when we have just finished sleeping.

Many of the positive effects people ascribe to the drug are simply the effects of being truly totally awake.

ANYONE considering using modafinil should note that a single 200mg pill is a far more powerful dose than you probably want. That dosage is for a patient with severe wakefulness problems, to force their body to stay awake for an entire day.

Exercise restraint and caution.

Agreed - I only ever take 1/2 100mg pills - so 50mg in total - and not every day. Those are fine to give me a wakeful buzz through the day when I take them.

Even when I was working on my side business in the mornings and evenings, I still only got through about 1.5 of those pills a day, so that's a total of 150mg. Bear in mind in those days I was sleeping about 4 hours a night, plus a 1-hour nap sometime in the day. That lasted 6 months, and near the end I really needed the Modafinil to be productive in that time, otherwise I'd just curl up and fall asleep with my head on the keyboard :-)

Daniel

How did the side business turn out? And, would you pop these pills again in a similar situation?

I quit and went on it full-time. It made a reasonable amount of money, and then it failed due to a major misunderstanding between me and my business partner about the goals of the business. I'm now working on another online business, though the first one is still running and making some modest amount of money.

I still occasionally use half-pills of 100mg Modafinils (ie 50mg doses), rarely, when I'm tired for some reason but I want or need to get some solid work done. Normally, though, I've reverted back to caffeine, for better or for worse. Occasionally, I also get bored of caffeine and go back to taking Modafinil regularly for a week or two.

I wouldn't recommend what I did - but not because of the Modafinil. Chronic lack of sleep just isn't good for you, drugs or no drugs. If I was teleported back in time to that point and offered that choice under the same circumstances, but with today's knowledge, I would definitely do it again.

Wow. Suddenly everyone is using "deleterious". I've seen it 3 times in the past 2 days. That was my word dammit! Now I'm not going to get those quizzical looks whenever I use it.

Oh well, I guess it won't be as bad as when the writers of Star Trek usurped "anomalous". That was a dark day in vocabulary land...

Big ideas don't need big words. "Negative" works just fine.

"Bad". 1up! Oh, and if it's really bad, just prepend "plus".

It was unleashed on the world: Monday July 8, 2002. http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2002/07...

You def get scene points since you helped revive it!

There was almost no information related to Provigil in that article. Sure, we got the standard, "Drugs are bad. Mmmmm...K?" But, that's just more noise. Why is is so hard to get signal on this topic?

Besides, I think that it's clear that the brain is a complicated and intricate combination of chemical reactions. I hardly believe that it can be considered balanced. Humankind has been self medicating with alcohol for centuries and the recent uptick in SSRI indicates that our brains may not not in fact be balanced (relative to the world we currently live in).

But, we're hackers; exploring new systems is what we do.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com