Drugs typically used to treat Alzheimer’s disease and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are being increasingly used by healthy people to gain a competitive edge at school, university and work.
The claims are made by experts writing in The Lancet Psychiatry journal.
The growing “lifestyle use” of brain-enhancing drugs —such as methylphenidate (marketed as Ritalin, used to treat ADHD) and modafinil (marketed as Provigil, used to improve wakefulness in adults with sleep disorders) — is against a backdrop of very little being known about the long-term effects of non-medical use, according to the authors, neuroscientists Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir from the University of Cambridge in the UK.
Most brain enhancers, such as modafinil and donepezil, have been developed by the pharmaceutical industry to treat the effects of impaired cognition in conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and schizophrenia.
However the neuroscientists say a wide range of pharmaceutical substances — from psychotropic medications to nicotine and caffeine — are used by patients and healthy individuals to alter, improve, and enhance mental functioning.
According to HSE figures, more than 136,000 prescriptions for donepezil (to treat Alzheimer’s) were written in 2012 for medical card holders, while 2,213 prescriptions were written for methylphenidate under the Long-Term Illness Scheme, and 935 were written for modafinil.
Source: Irish Examiner, 01/04/15