{"id":168301,"date":"2023-07-25T12:23:46","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T17:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/so-called-smart-drugs-increase-cognitive-effort-but-decrease-its-quality-in-healthy-individuals"},"modified":"2023-07-25T12:23:46","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T17:23:46","slug":"so-called-smart-drugs-increase-cognitive-effort-but-decrease-its-quality-in-healthy-individuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/so-called-smart-drugs-increase-cognitive-effort-but-decrease-its-quality-in-healthy-individuals","title":{"rendered":"So-called \u201csmart\u201d drugs increase cognitive effort but decrease its quality in healthy individuals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/so-called-smart-drugs-increase-cognitive-effort-but-decrease-its-quality-in-healthy-individuals2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The use of \u201csmart drugs\u201d to enhance productivity in academic and workplace settings is on the rise. A recent study published in <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/sciadv.add4165\"><em>Science Advances<\/em><\/a> examined the effects of three popular smart drugs \u2013 methylphenidate, modafinil, and dextroamphetamine \u2013 on real-life tasks. The researchers hypothesized that these drugs, which affect dopamine and norepinephrine, would influence motivation and effort, ultimately leading to improved performance.<\/p>\n<p>The study involved forty participants between the ages of 18 and 35. The participants were randomly assigned to four groups and attended four testing sessions. In each session, they were given one of three popular smart drugs or a placebo. The drugs were administered in a double-blinded manner, meaning neither the participants nor the researchers knew which drug was being given.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers used a task called the \u201cknapsack task\u201d to evaluate the participants\u2019 cognitive performance. This task involves solving a complex optimization problem where participants have to select items with certain weights and values to maximize the overall value while staying within a weight limit. The difficulty of the task was designed to simulate real-life complex tasks that people encounter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The use of \u201csmart drugs\u201d to enhance productivity in academic and workplace settings is on the rise. A recent study published in Science Advances examined the effects of three popular smart drugs \u2013 methylphenidate, modafinil, and dextroamphetamine \u2013 on real-life tasks. The researchers hypothesized that these drugs, which affect dopamine and norepinephrine, would influence motivation [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}