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They dropped high clinical doses of stimulants onto unacclimated subjects and had them do 8 knapsack problems, 4-minute limit each. There was an increase in num

They dropped high clinical doses of stimulants onto unacclimated subjects and had them do 8 knapsack problems, 4-minute limit each. There was an increase in number of moves, decrease in average score, chance of finding the optimal solution was the same. In other words, if you get a random person high and hand them a puzzle, they do a little bit worse. I'm not surprised. Anyone who is not neurotypical, plans to take more than one dose per lifetime, or is working longer than 32 minutes may want to question if this study applies to them.

glimmung 3y ago
Spot on. Your last line is what I came here to say.
pproe 3y ago
"Doses are at the high end of those administered in clinical practice, reflecting typical doses in nonmedical settings, where use tends to be occasional rather than chronic." I think the point is to highlight that using these drugs as a one-off is not effective. To the surprise of no-one, poorly dosed medications perform poorly. There's going to be very little crossover between 1) people who need to see this paper, and 2) people who are the types to read papers on dosage efficacy.
- awesomeMilou 3y ago
  Then the authors should have lead with the purpose in their abstract and also highlight this fact in their discussion. They choose not to. Instead, their paper is titled "Not so smart?“Smart”drugs increase the level butdecrease the qualityof cognitive effort", with the abstract leading with "The efficacy of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers in everyday complex tasks remains to be established." Sorry, but that's just attention grabbing nonsense. Should have said "for people undiagnosed with cognitive impairments".
- travisjungroth 3y ago
  Multiplying out the average time for the tasks, they spent about 25 minutes total. If their goal was to recreate the conditions where people take these drugs in non-medical settings, they failed. It is not when you have a half hour of puzzles, and someone sitting next to you and scoring your work. It's when you have 24 hours of work and 16 hours to do it. Or, a 15 minute task that feels like pulling off your own fingernails.
  - doubled112 3y ago
    > when you have 24 hours of work and 16 hours to do it We used to call this a compressed work day. Which compression algorithm is this? I bet it is pretty lossy.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Anyone who is not neurotypical, plans to take more than one dose per lifetime, or is working longer than 32 minutes may want to question if this study applies to them I suppose it's a fair counterpoint to folks who take these drugs occasionally in pursuit of gains. Granted, their tasks take longer than thirty-two minutes--that's why they're popping Adderrall.
- carlmr 3y ago
  Occasional might also be different from one-off. If you'd one-off anything your brain might be very much busy with thinking about: What's happening next? Am I feeling the effects now? Is this it? It might end up you're distracted more than anything because it's a new feeling. Say you never drank alcohol in your life. Somebody gives you a beer. A beer doesn't have that strong an effect, but if you don't know what's coming your mind still might be very busy figuring out what's happening. And while you expect some drop in intellectual ability from alcohol, an experienced occasional user will probably not have as severe a drop from one beer as the person that never tried any. The occasional user will know the experience after a while, but not have a tolerance. That's who's interesting to study.
  - travisjungroth 3y ago
    They were given the meds and then sat for 90 minutes. Someone without a tolerance taking 15mg of dextroamphetamine will not be wondering if they're feeling the effects.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      GP isn't talking about "wondering if", but rather being distracted by thoughts like "WTF is going on?", "wooow!", "WOOOWOWOWOW!", "is it supposed to be like this?", "oh look at me I NAILED this task", "I think I have been hungry for the past 3 hours but I don't really care, WOW this is nice", etc. You get used to it in a day or two, and most of the "WOW factor" disappears just as fast - point being, one's very first day or two of taking such drugs aren't good as a benchmark. BTW. with the beer example, it's been measured that part of intoxication effect comes from expectations. As in, you give people non-alcoholic drinks while telling them they're regular ones, and they'll show the usual signs of alcohol influence - worse coordination, stuttering speech, etc. - and snap out of it once told they've been drinking placebo. Reverse also seems true, i.e. early effects are weaker when people think they're drinking placebo while getting the real deal. (And, N=1, personally I've observed I can "fix" the effect of a beer or two on movement and speech if I consciously remind myself that there's an expectations component to intoxication effect. Of course this works only up to a certain BAC level :).)

glimmung 3y ago

Spot on. Your last line is what I came here to say.

pproe 3y ago

"Doses are at the high end of those administered in clinical practice, reflecting typical doses in nonmedical settings, where use tends to be occasional rather than chronic." I think the point is to highlight that using these drugs as a one-off is not effective. To the surprise of no-one, poorly dosed medications perform poorly. There's going to be very little crossover between 1) people who need to see this paper, and 2) people who are the types to read papers on dosage efficacy.

awesomeMilou 3y ago
Then the authors should have lead with the purpose in their abstract and also highlight this fact in their discussion. They choose not to. Instead, their paper is titled "Not so smart?“Smart”drugs increase the level butdecrease the qualityof cognitive effort", with the abstract leading with "The efficacy of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers in everyday complex tasks remains to be established." Sorry, but that's just attention grabbing nonsense. Should have said "for people undiagnosed with cognitive impairments".
travisjungroth 3y ago
Multiplying out the average time for the tasks, they spent about 25 minutes total. If their goal was to recreate the conditions where people take these drugs in non-medical settings, they failed. It is not when you have a half hour of puzzles, and someone sitting next to you and scoring your work. It's when you have 24 hours of work and 16 hours to do it. Or, a 15 minute task that feels like pulling off your own fingernails.
- doubled112 3y ago
  > when you have 24 hours of work and 16 hours to do it We used to call this a compressed work day. Which compression algorithm is this? I bet it is pretty lossy.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Anyone who is not neurotypical, plans to take more than one dose per lifetime, or is working longer than 32 minutes may want to question if this study applies to them I suppose it's a fair counterpoint to folks who take these drugs occasionally in pursuit of gains. Granted, their tasks take longer than thirty-two minutes--that's why they're popping Adderrall.

carlmr 3y ago
Occasional might also be different from one-off. If you'd one-off anything your brain might be very much busy with thinking about: What's happening next? Am I feeling the effects now? Is this it? It might end up you're distracted more than anything because it's a new feeling. Say you never drank alcohol in your life. Somebody gives you a beer. A beer doesn't have that strong an effect, but if you don't know what's coming your mind still might be very busy figuring out what's happening. And while you expect some drop in intellectual ability from alcohol, an experienced occasional user will probably not have as severe a drop from one beer as the person that never tried any. The occasional user will know the experience after a while, but not have a tolerance. That's who's interesting to study.
- travisjungroth 3y ago
  They were given the meds and then sat for 90 minutes. Someone without a tolerance taking 15mg of dextroamphetamine will not be wondering if they're feeling the effects.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    GP isn't talking about "wondering if", but rather being distracted by thoughts like "WTF is going on?", "wooow!", "WOOOWOWOWOW!", "is it supposed to be like this?", "oh look at me I NAILED this task", "I think I have been hungry for the past 3 hours but I don't really care, WOW this is nice", etc. You get used to it in a day or two, and most of the "WOW factor" disappears just as fast - point being, one's very first day or two of taking such drugs aren't good as a benchmark. BTW. with the beer example, it's been measured that part of intoxication effect comes from expectations. As in, you give people non-alcoholic drinks while telling them they're regular ones, and they'll show the usual signs of alcohol influence - worse coordination, stuttering speech, etc. - and snap out of it once told they've been drinking placebo. Reverse also seems true, i.e. early effects are weaker when people think they're drinking placebo while getting the real deal. (And, N=1, personally I've observed I can "fix" the effect of a beer or two on movement and speech if I consciously remind myself that there's an expectations component to intoxication effect. Of course this works only up to a certain BAC level :).)