This Smart Pill Will Actually Make You Dumb Some drugs promise mental cognitive enhancements, however, they actually work against the concept. According to a recently conducted study in the University of Nottingham (Malaysia Campus), there are a number of drugs in the market that claim better memory, focus, recall and other such cognitive abilities, however, these claims are all dubious. In fact, these drugs might only decrease your mental capability.
Drugs such as Modanfinil or Provigil, commonly available in the pharmaceutical market of the United States have become popular among university students who would take the drug before they need to study. The scientists looked closely in the drug and how it acted inside the brain; gauging it over how well the users can respond accurately and timely to come to these conclusions.
Modafinil has been in the market for quite a while now. Even though, it is used in the United States for wakefulness symptoms such as narcolepsy and curing daytime sleepiness, etc. It has also been used to cure many other conditions such as opiate and cocaine dependence, depression, Parkinson's and ADHD. In some cases it has also been used to cure schizophrenia. It was used on a large scale in France during the 1980s by students. It was then known to improve many factors of the working memory including pattern recognition, digit manipulation and digit span, etc.
For this new study, Dr. Mohamed, from the UON Malaysia, sampled 32 participants with the drug and another sample of 32 with a placebo. They were then given a famous psychological evaluation science test that meant to calculate their response suppression and response initiation. The people who took the drug actually had an impaired response when solving the test.
It has hence been argued by Dr. Mohammad that the drug may in fact improve performance by delaying the ability to response. Hence, the delayed responsiveness means affected impulsiveness. This meant that the new study actually offered nothing to support the previous claims. However, it does support a previous study that was conducted by Dr.
Mohammad, which showed the function of Modafinil in helping impaired participants in producing much creative responses.
Hence, Dr. Mohammad's researches said that the drug was helpful to some people, who were already low performing. However, if the individual using the drug is already on normal performance, the drug will only decrease its cognitive abilities.
The drug is hence, overall ill-advised for use by people who have no trouble studying or performing the routine functions.
Source: http://www.researchomatic.com/Smart-Pills-89261.html