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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday October 27 2015, @08:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the medication-must-be-the-answer dept.

Humans in 2015 have a small arsenal of tools available to at least temporarily upgrade our brains via the increasingly popular paradigm of "cognitive enhancement."

This is a different boost than that offered by sketchy as-seen-on-NPR brain training schemes, offering literal, physiological neuro-manipulations via either chemistry or electricity. It's no secret that drugs like Adderall and Ritalin are widely sought after among healthy populations looking for an extra push, while electronic stimulant headsets are seeing a somewhat quieter or at least less fretted-about rise. Do they really work? We mostly don't know, warns cognitive neuroscientist Martha Farah in this week's issue of Science.

Original paper available here, or you can just read the vice.motherboard.com article.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @09:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @09:37AM (#255030)

    Mentioned in article: Adderall, Ritalin, modafinil, amphetamine, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), alternating current stimulation (tACS), random noise stimulation (tRNS), pulsed stimulation (tPCS)

    Unmentioned: caffeine, theanine, piracetam, aniracetam, oxiracetam, methylphenidate, dihexa, creatine, choline, donepezil

    Starting Score:    0  points
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       Interesting=1, Informative=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:14PM (#255096)

    Unmentioned: caffeine, theanine, piracetam, aniracetam, oxiracetam, methylphenidate , dihexa, creatine, choline, donepezil

    methylphenidate is ritalin. it is a shitty imitation cocaine that is less effective, more addictive and considerably more harmful

    i feel mountains of sympathy for any child who is given this crab. i was called ADD, and given this stuff. as a veteran of many street drugs including coke and methcat, i can say concerta and ritalin, two preparations of methylphenidate, are ifinitely worse than anything a nigerian ever sold me.

    i've also heard of nigerians telling friends who are hitting the coke or the methcat too hard, 'hey buddy, i like the money and all, but don't you think you should cool it?'

    where will you find one of those respectable pushers, a.k.a. general practitioners, advising you to cool it? no he wants you to take the shit every day, for the rest of your life! Yes it causes brain damage, serious down-regulation of dopamine production and large scale receptor damage (much more than coke, which doesn't really cause much damage) probably resulting in parkinsons and / or alzheimers, but at least the profits go to respectable men in white coats and white collars, you know, not grubby brown people from the other side of the border.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by davester666 on Wednesday October 28 2015, @05:22AM

    by davester666 (155) on Wednesday October 28 2015, @05:22AM (#255447)

    You forgot meth and coke.