Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: With recent advances in fields like biotechnology and genetic engineering, the concern for a just and equal distribution of human enhancement technologies undoubtedly became one of the most significant ethical dilemmas of the 21st century.And with the sudden rise of cognitive enhancement drug (otherwise called as nootropics) use in society, the need for developing policies to address these dilemmas have now become an urgent issue that the scientific and political community must confront.Once only used by the few with special needs or neurological disorders, nootropics are now being utilized by a significant part of the population for cognitive enhancement, inciting a debate of the regulation and legalization of nootropics.Nonetheless, given the currently known benefits and risks of nootropics, the mechanisms through which nootropics function, and the ineffectiveness of policy restrictions, it would be more pragmatic to inform and allow for the non-prescription uses for some nootropics rather than to restrict its use.Benefits, Risks, and Viability of the Use of Nootropics Among many other nootropics, two drugs have become the de facto nootropics for many healthy individuals: modafinil (commercially known as Provigil) and methylphenidate (commercially known as Ritalin).Used as prescribed, modafinil and methylphenidate have different purposes; modafinil is used to alleviate symptoms of "excessive daytime sleepiness", while methylphenidate (MPH) is used for the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (Repantis et.al, 2010, p. 188).Despite these differences between the two, they are both frequently used for the singular purpose of improving the ability to complete a cognitive task.Modafinil's most significant effect, as it could be inferred by its primary use, is the promotion of wakefulness and the maintenance of cognitive capacity for those who are sleepdeprived.This effect of modafinil have been used by military to stave off the inevitable cognitive decline of long missions (Repantis et.al, 2010, p. 188).In non-sleep-deprived individuals, Professor Repantis et al. found in his meta-analysis that modafinil promoted only the capacity to pay attention in the studies in which modafinil was consumed once (2010, p. 203).Another meta-analysis have found modafinil may enhance working memory (Lynch et al, 2012, p. 122), which is a "process whereby information is held in mind for brief periods" (Husain & Mehta, 2011, p. 28).Beyond attention, another study have reported improvements in mood, memory for digits, pattern recognition, "spatial planning, and stop-signal reaction time" (Turner et al., 2002, p. 260).By contrast, there are studies that report contradictory results, with one study reporting that modafinil only raised the anxiety levels of the volunteers who took modafinil, and moreover with no cognitive enhancements (Randall et al., 2003, p. 163).Like modafinil, effects of methylphenidate (MPH) can vary widely depending on the studies.And like modafinil, the primary mechanism and function of MPH is known; MPH primarily leads to the arousal of the person by increasing the levels of dopamine and noradrenaline, which is known to positively affect the spatial working memory (SWM) in monkeys (Mehta et al., 2000, p. 1).This arousal is also thought to lead to improvements in attention in theory, as the meta-analysis by Professor Lynch et al. has concluded (2011, p. 121).However, a study by Professor Elliott et al. have found that while there were no enhancements of attention, spatial working memory may be enhanced by MPH.The study also demonstrated the
Author: Jin Pyo Jeon
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2569027753