Modafinil has consistently been shown to improve attention in non-sleep-deprived and sleep-deprived healthy individuals. Its wake-promoting effects match those of stimulants like amphetamine and methylphenidate. However, it has lower rates of psychiatric adverse events, including mania (Vorspan et al., 2005). It also has fewer side effects such as nausea and headache.
Boosts Focus
The “smart drug” modafinil 200mg australia boosts people’s ability to concentrate on long and complex tasks, and improves decision-making and planning skills, according to a new review of studies. The wake-promoting drug is FDA-approved to treat sleep disorders, but it has also become popular among students seeking a cognitive edge during study sessions and exams.
Unlike traditional stimulants like Ritalin (methylphenidate) or Adderall (mixed amphetamine salts), which are used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, modafinil does not stimulate the central nervous system and does not have the side effects of hyperactivity associated with these drugs. Those features make the drug a preferred choice for many students prone to jitters and sweating.
However the drug has not been tested for domain-specific improvements in a non-sleep disordered population, and it is unclear whether it simply provides a general increase in arousal, a characteristic of most catecholamine reuptake inhibitors. In the new study, researchers conducted a series of experiments to test for modafinil’s effect on specific aspects of cognition, including spatial working memory, logic memory, verbal fluency, and attention shifting.
The experiments found that modafinil improved these cognitive processes, but not others. For example, the drug did not improve creative problem-solving and did worsen word retrieval in the CANTAB paired associate learning task and the Wisconsin Card Sort Task. These findings support the idea that modafinil is a selective cognitive enhancer and raise ethical concerns about its use as an exam preparation tool, the authors say.
Increases Memory
Modafinil is already well-known to boost memory in healthy people, but the study found that it also increased working memory. That might sound like a small benefit, but it can be significant for students engaged in last-minute cramming sessions.
The researchers looked at 24 studies that tested how Modalert 200 Australia affected different types of cognitive tasks. They found that the drug did not improve long-term visual recall, but it did increase working memory, attention, and decision-making. It improved the Tower of London spatial planning task and delayed visual recognition, two tests of temporal lobe function. It did not improve the one-touch Stockings of Cambridge spatial planning task or a test of paired associates learning. It did, however, improve the 10-box task, which is a measure of working memory capacity.
Subjective ratings of task enjoyment were enhanced by modafinil, but it did not significantly improve creativity or motor excitability. It also did not affect working memory or flexibility of thought, but it did improve decision-making and planning.
ToF-SIMS measurements revealed that modafinil increases the abundance of phosphatidylcholine and decreases phosphatidylethanolamine in brain cells, which might explain its cognition-enhancing effects. The findings are important because they indicate that alterations in the concentrations of phospholipids can impact cognitive performance. They also suggest that lipid-modifying agents might be useful for the treatment of disorders that impair cognition.
Stimulates Attention
Modafinil may boost your ability to pay attention, but a new study suggests that it might not be good for other cognitive tasks. Researchers found that the drug didn’t improve people’s abilities to solve complex problems or respond creatively to questions. They also found that it didn’t increase people’s motor excitability or working memory.
The scientists used rs-fMRI to measure the effects of modafinil on the human brain. They found that the drug caused increased functional connectivity (FC) between the visual cortex and prefrontal areas. This area is associate with a variety of core processes, including attention levels, working memory (WM), and inhibitory control. In addition, FC changes were found in the cerebellar Crus I and II lobules.
In addition to this, the drug was found to enhance performance on a behavioral pattern monitor (5C-CPT) task in humans. However, the same task was not significantly improv by the drug in mice, nor did it affect arousal. The authors suggest that these results show that modafinil does not produce domain-specific enhancement of cognition in humans using a standardized test and that it is more effective in rodents.
While this research shows that the euphoric effects of Modafinil can be beneficial for studying, it does raise ethical questions about students taking cognitive enhancers before exams. Some universities have begun to enforce policy against this, and the Tab – a student website – reports that users in the most competitive universities are more likely to use cognitive enhancers.
Reduces Stress
Often referred to as “smart drugs,” cognitive enhancers such as Modafinil (Provigil) are increasingly use by students aiming to improve their performance during study sessions and exams. Although this drug was originally develop for narcolepsy, it has gained notoriety as an effective academic aid because it boosts alertness without the typical hyperactivity associated with stimulants.
This makes it ideal for longer and more complex tasks that require concentration, such as planning and decision-making. Modafinil also helps to improve short-term memory in some cases. However, this new research suggests that using the drug for studying is not without its risks. It may disrupt normal sleep patterns and increase heart rate, and it could exacerbate anxiety in some individuals, especially those with underlying health conditions.
The researchers tested healthy participants with a double-blind placebo-controlled study design. Each participant completed two scanning sessions, with the first session performed before modafinil administration and the second afterward. The brain imaging studies were pair with self-report measures of mood and motivation.
In the WM task, modafinil reduced the BOLD signal in both the prefrontal cortex and accumbens lobe, suggesting that the drug improved working memory capacity and flexibility of thought. In the VAC task, modafinil decreased anterior cingulate activation for higher demands of attention and improved accuracy over placebo. Read More Blog…
