Antidepressant modafinil, or become the first "smart drug"
Release time：2015-08-26
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Modafinil (Modafinil), as an antidepressant drug for the treatment of sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1998. Modafinil became the first marketed drug for the treatment of sleep disorders with good central excitatory effects and fewer side effects.
Past studies have found that people who are sleep-deprived take modafinil and their mental state is significantly enhanced. But for normal people, modafinil this effect is not obvious. And modafinil can be used as an auxiliary drug for the treatment of depression to enhance the therapeutic effect. It is precisely because modafinil has an exciting effect that many people use it as a "good medicine" for staying up late to work and surprise exams ".
In February 2011, South Korea media reported that according to a survey of 1561 patients taking modafinil, about 21% of them experienced emotional loss of control and headache symptoms, and even some patients had a series of problems such as mental disorders leading to suicidal tendencies. Therefore, the South Korea Food and Medical Safety Agency has stopped the prescription drug. In November 2014, the Daily Mail reported that one in five academics took modafinil. Among healthy students, it was found that the side effects of taking drugs were lax in thinking and lack of innovation. However, students who lag behind in achievement show a positive effect of intellectual improvement.
For a time, people have different attitudes towards the "smart drug" modafinil, and there are arguments about whether it can really improve cognition and whether there are side effects.
On August 19, 2015, a review published online in the European Neuropsychopharmacology broke the ice by cautiously showing that modafinil does indeed improve cognitive performance, at least in certain groups.
Modafinil improves cognitive ability
The two review authors, Dr. Ruairidh McLennan Battleday of Oxford University and Dr. Anna-Katharine Brem of Harvard Medical School, used "modafinil" and "cognitive (cognitive)" as search terms and reviewed all academic papers on cognitive enhancement from January 1990 to December 2014. They found 24 studies on the benefits of modafinil, including improvements in planning, decision-making, active thinking, learning, memory and innovation.
Unsurprisingly, modafinil was found to improve cognitive performance in all 24 academic studies, even if the trial tasks were different. The unexpected finding was that this enhancement was more pronounced when the trial task was long-lasting and complex. And, reassuringly, 70% of the research papers showed that modafinil had very few other side effects such as mood disturbances, even though there were two cases of insomnia, headache, stomach pain or nausea (the same was true for the placebo group).
This is the first review of the effects of modafinil on normal people without narcolepsy since 2008. It includes data from recent years. Through comparison, it is found that the academic method used to evaluate the impact of modafinil on cognitive ability has improved. In the past, cognitive tests were often done in a very basic way for people with neurological damage. Now, through a sophisticated testing system, modafinil has been shown to enhance cognition.
Modafinil will not become a "smart drug" listed
In the controlled setting in which the researchers participated, modafinil was considered a cognitive-enhancing drug because of its few side effects. But review author Dr. Anna-KatharineBrem stressed that we need to find better ways to accurately test normal or extraordinary levels of cognition. However, any method of cognitive enhancement, ethical and safety issues should be considered.
Professor Guy Goodwin of Neuropsychopharmacology at the European University (ECNP) commented: This review summarizes the evidence we have so far that modafinil can enhance cognition, which is independent of its participation in the treatment of sleep disorders. Modafinil may be the first truly clinical "smart drug".
The review authors stress that modafinil is currently licensed as a nootropic and will not be licensed in the future because it is not part of current drug regulation. Once the therapeutic drug for the brain nerve is used as an over-the-counter drug, it will cause a lot of professional ethics thinking and produce potential harm.
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