Scientific Clearing House: Mind enhancing drugs
Apparently, CX717, an ampakine developed by Cortex Pharmaceuticals, shows some signs of preventing the cognitive impairment brought on by sleep deprivation. The original study in PLoS Biology (news & views) was done with monkeys.
The NYT has an article on student life at Columbia called The Adderall Advantage.
Relevant quote:
But interviews and e-mail exchanges with two dozen Columbia students suggest that the prevailing ethos is that Adderall, the drug of choice these days, is a legitimate and even hip way to get through the rigors of a hectic academic and social life. “The culture here actually encourages people to use stimulants,” said Barak Ben-Ezer, a computer science and economics major who prefers Red Bull, a caffeinated beverage, and cigarettes over prescription drugs.
And on addiction:
Designer stimulants like Adderall are far less dangerous than cocaine or methamphetamines. According to the Shire Pharmaceuticals Group, which makes Adderall, medical research has found it has no potential for addiction.
Subjects played a game in which “investors” could give money to “trustees”. They could make more money this way, but only if the trustee honored the investor’s trust by sharing the profits equally.
29 investors were given a nasal spray of oxytocin, and 29 weren’t. 13 (45%) of the oxytocin investors invested highly, but only 6 (21%) of the control group did.
“The researchers, led by Dr Ernest Fehr, say this suggests the chemical promotes social interaction, rather than simply encouraging people to take risks.” — BBC
The oxytocin had no effect if the trustee was a computer, instead of a person. Oxytocin had no effect on trustees.
Overheard on MTV today in a Pop-Up Video-style commentary:
(In background, video for “Ohio is For Lovers” by Hawthorne Heights.)
College student 1: They are kind of like the Goo Goo Dolls on speed.
College student 2: I have to disagree with you there. I think they are actually more like Dashboard Confessional on healthy doses of Adderall.
This entry isn’t really about science, but I just thought it was interesting to see the reference to “healthy doses of Adderall” (emphasis is mine). This certainly lends credence to the idea that Adderall is being treated more of as a lifestyle drug than potentially a drug of abuse. Interesting.
Another interesting psychopharmacology issue. We’ve covered the SSRIs here before but the newest trend is among high-school and college-age wanting something to help them focus, do better on tests, etc. Adderall, prescription amphetamine salts for ADHD, seems to be the drug of choice. Article from the Christian Science Monitor follows. (A quick search on Google News shows just how much press this issue has been getting.)
(more…)
The way that general anesthetics work is still somewhat mysterious. Here’s one intriguing hypothesis.
Anesthetics increase conduction velocity in myelinated fibers. Perhaps they disrupt the carefully calibrated timing of axonal transmission. This may selectively interfere with spike timing-based computation, while leaving rate-based computation intact. If consciousness (or some general class of higher-order functions) is spike timing based, but lower-order functions are rate-based, this would explain why anesthetics selectively affect higher-order functions.
Swindale, Nicholas V. Neural Synchrony, Axonal Path Lengths, and General Anesthesia: A Hypothesis. Neuroscientist 2003 9: 440-445
I didn’t read the article yet (I don’t have access privs to that journal), but it looks cool.
(related NeuroWiki page: GeneralAnesthesia)
This month’s Nature Neuroscience includes an interesting editorial on what might really be happening with monoamine-targeted antidepressenants (ie. like SSRIs). The article suggests that downstream effects might be the actual regulators of emotional mood; for example, serotonin is known to both increase neurotrophin production and induce neurogenesis.
Full article is here.
Journalist takes a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, paroxetine HCl (Paxil), for 44 days, and reports on effects.
Looks like the serotonin anti-depressants (ie. SSRIs and agonists) might create physical dependence, and thus can cause some serious withdrawal. Surprise, surprise! This article from the NYT points out that since serotonin is used throughout the body, including in the digestive system, there can be some very strange withdrawal effects. Interesting point about how drugs with a longer half-life produce less severe withdrawal because they leave the system more gradually.
[Edited 11/2006 to rectify incorrect use of addiction-dependence terminology -Neville]
Click Read More for the whole article.
(more…)