Posted by When Olympic athletes get busted for taking drugs to enhance their physical performance they are penalized, stripped of their accomplishments and publicly shamed. So the big question facing doctors, teachers, parents, policy makers, and the media these days is whether or not drugs should be allowed for people to use in order to enhance their cognitive performance. Also known as Smart Drugs, Nootropics, or 
Cogs, cognitive enhancing drugs are being taken by students and professionals alike to help give them a boost of brain power during mentally challenging tasks, or to help them push through periods of fatigue so they can “get ahead” in today’s lightning-paced world. Perfectly healthy individuals are seeking out ways to enhance brain function and sharpen their memories in attempts to avoid the mental deterioration associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Even the US military has employed Cognitive Enhancers to help its soldiers and pilots stay focused and alert during 30 hour missions.
In my search for “what the kids are into these days,” I compiled this very short list of the more popular Cogs, wherein I tried to pick some from the worlds of the legally prescribed, the illegally imported, and the naturally occurring.
Piracetam
The term Nootropic comes from the Greek words noos, meaning “mind,” and tropein meaning “to bend/turn.” It was coined in 1964 by Dr. Corneliu E. Giurgea, a Romanian psychologist and chemist who was the first to synthesise Piracetam. The first of the Smart Drugs, Piracetam effects many parts of the brain in charge of learning, memory, oxygen production, and has been used to improve cognition in Alzheimer’s disease patients, as well as in schizophrenics. Tests have even indicated that it improves reading skills in people with dyslexia.
Piracetam has been a student favourite for years as it has very few short term side effects. Students buy it in powdered form and mix it with juice to create their very own Cog-tail. They claim that it “wakes up” their brains and they are able to focus for longer periods of time without getting tired or distracted.
Modafinil
Have you ever been driving down the road, dump-tee dum, when suddenly you’re waking up in ditch, with drool all over your steering wheel and the letters VW imprinted in your forehead? Have you ever competed in the pole vault, when one second you’re running at full speed and the next you’re curled in the fetal 
position on the mat hugging the pole? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to these questions there’s a good chance you suffer from the spontaneous sleeping disorder known as narcolepsy. While there is no known cure for narcolepsy, sufferers are either treated with medication to help them get deeper sleeps at night, or medication to keep them awake during the day.
The heavily marketed Modafinil, also known as Provigil, Alertec, and Modalert falls under the latter category. If this non-amphetamine stimulant is helping to keep spontaneous day-nappers awake, then imagine its effects on the rest of us. One article provides evidence that Modafinil improves memory capacity, specifically “verbal working memory, planning performance, working memory and executive inhibitory control (ability to stay on task).” So its no surprise that the drug, which can be ordered off the internet, is becoming ever more popular as a cognitive enhancer for perfectly healthy people seeking to increase levels of concentration, focus, and memory over long periods of time without so much as a yawn. University students in the UK and the US taking Modafinil reported having better short-term memory, were better at remembering strings of numbers, and found they could write papers all night without energy depletion. Imagine a Redbull wrapped in a RockStar and dipped in Full Throttle.
Little is known about the long term effects of taking Modafinil, but so far there are no known short-term side effects and it is not addictive, although the results from the extra cognitive alertness might be.
Cocaine
Cocaine is a naturally occurring chemical compound found in Erythroxylon coca leaves, a shrub located in South America. The drug is a psychostimulant which according to this article “induces a sense of exhilaration in the user primarily by blocking the reuptake of the 
neurotransmitter dopamine in the midbrain.” Dopamine, also known as “awesome pleasure juice,” is the wonderful stuff produced by the brain which provides us with happy feelings when we perform activities like having sex or eating delicious food. Among many other roles, one of its purposes is to associate pleasure with these activities so we will want to perform them again. Cocaine basically disrupts the mechanism controlling how much awesome pleasure juice is dumped into our systems.
So is cocaine a cognitive enhancer? Any fan of standup comedian/actor Robin Williams would have to undoubtedly say “yes.” In fact famous psychiatrist and cocaine enthusiast Sigmund Freud would be forced to agree, as would “Robert Louis Stephenson, [who] wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde during a six-day cocaine-binge.” If you’ve ever been stuck in a bar conversation with someone who’s been “skiing the slopes” you certainly wouldn’t say they were necessarily “smarter,” but you would admit they had a lot to say. While it doesn’t enhance human intelligence, the extra dopamine in the system as the result of snorting cocaine can lead to enhanced emotional state, sexual stimulation, self-confidence, conversational prowess and intensified consciousness. HOWEVER! Cocaine is highly addictive with side effects including: high blood pressure; anxiety; insomnia; damaged nasal cavity; lung damage; heart palpatations; heart attacks; strokes; convulsions and worst of all, tiny penis syndrome.
“I said to a guy, I said ‘Tell me. What it is it that makes cocaine so wonderful? And the guy said ‘Well, it intensifies your personality.’ And I said ‘Yes, but what if you’re an asshole?” – Bill Cosby
Sugar
Whether you’re chugging a can of Dr.Pepper or devouring an Oh Henry bar, whenever your body consumes sugar, the subsequent glucose in your bloodstream is broken down and transformed into fuel for your brain. It promotes brain cell function and is an important element in the creation of acetylcholine, a chemical linked to learning and memory. Of course too many sweet treats over time can lead to tooth decay, diabetes and fatty fat fat syndrome, but on occasion a well timed sugar injection can put your brain into fifth gear with increased mental abilities. Glucose levels peak at about one hour after ingestion, something to keep in mind the next time you have a brain-heavy task ahead of you.
Ritalin
In a world (feel free to insert ‘preview guy voice’ here) where 3-5% of children under the age of 7 are being diagnosed with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), its shocking to discover how many people are prescribed Ritalin. The psychostimulant psychostimulates the central nervous system, helping hyperactive distracted children to focus. It’s ‘powers’ have attracted many people, mostly teenagers and university students, without ADD or ADHD, who consume Ritalin for its effects on appetite suppression, wakefulness, euphoria, and increased attentiveness. The most common complaints from patients who’ve been prescribed Ritalin are nervousness and insomnia, but these can be controlled by reducing the dosage and taking the pills earlier in the day. For people who abuse the drug, however, they are exposing themselves to psychotic episodes, heart problems, and psychological addiction.
Omega 3 Fatty Acids
Diet is arguably the most important factor when considering its effects on cognition and the brain. Studies have shown that many people who suffer from ADD or ADHD, also show low levels of omega 3 fatty acids. These low levels have also been linked to depression and aggression. Fatty acids play a vital role in the 
healthy formation and repair of your brain’s nerve cell membranes and membrane fluidity. If the membranes aren’t fluid, people will experience negative behaviour, bad moods, and poor mental function. According to this article “Symptoms of omega-3 fatty acid deficiency include extreme tiredness (fatigue), poor memory, dry skin, heart problems, mood swings or depression, and poor circulation.” So where does one procure these fatty acids? Fish contain the highest amounts of omega 3, so you should either eat fish twice a week or take fish oil supplements on a daily basis.
A good friend of mine was diagnosed with ADD and was of course all too quickly prescribed Ritalin. An intelligent naturalist, he refused to believe that drugs were the answer. After conducting his own research he came across a fish oil supplement and discovered the benefits of an omega 3 rich diet. He swears by his fish oil capsules and he calls them his brain fuel. High amounts of fatty acids in the brain have shown to improve memory and performance, to stimulate learning ability, to reduce aggression and depression in teenagers, and they lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in adults.
After a long talk with my fish-fuelled friend and after reading several articles on the topic, I’ve picked omega 3 fatty acids as my cognitive enhancer of choice. They certainly demonstrate more benefits for the brain, and where most of the others can negatively affect the heart, omega 3 has also proven to reduce the risk of cardiovascular dysfunction. I’ve decided to give fish oil a try as an experiment, and I will certainly post another article reporting the results. Hopefully my new superpowers will have increased my vocabulary and improved my sentence structuring by then!
To conclude I’ve borrowed a quote from www.cerebralhealth.com which perfectly illustrates the “pro” side of the Smart Drug argument.
“Among the normal population are men and women with incredible memories, fast learners of language and music, and those with enhanced capabilities of all kinds. Something in their brains allows them to encode new information at lightning speed. We accept the fact that they must have some chemical system that is superior to ours or some neural circuitry that is more efficient. So why should we be upset if the same thing can be achieved with a pill? In some way, we were cheated by Mother Nature if we didn’t get the superior neural system, so for us to cheat her back through our own inventiveness seems like a smart thing to do. In my opinion it is exactly what we should do.”
—Michael Gazzaniga (Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College)
Do you agree? Or do you feel that like steroids, Smart Drugs give people an unfair advantage? Do students or co-workers with enhanced noodles raise the bar for what is expected in terms of performance, and will these new expectations force everyone else to ride the Nootropic Slide if they want to keep up? Or are you of the belief that medicine is intended to heal the sick, not to temporarily and artificially supercharge the healthy? Feel free to comment with your opinions.
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