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Cognitive Enhancers: A Literature Review

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Cognitive enhancers are drugs and supplements that have the ability to improve the “mental performance” of an individual in three main cognitive domains: memory, attention and creativity. At their most basic meaning, memory can be defined as the ability to recall events or learned material; attention, to focus in something while ignoring distracters; and creativity, to conceive original and useful ideas or products (Lanni et al., 2008). There are other types of cognitive enhancers, such as electrical brain stimulation and psychotropic drugs, which will not be discussed in this paper.
Many of the medications used by healthy individuals to enhance cognitive abilities were designed for other purposes, specially treating some traits of mental illnesses. …show more content…
Nowadays, this pursue is still happening and the rate of people using cognitive enhancers for various motives has been exponentially increasing over the last few decades.
In 2008, Nature magazine asked its readers for views on their use of non-prescribed drugs. The survey showed that, among 1400 individuals from 60 different countries, about 20% claimed to have used methylphenidate (known as Ritalin), modafinil or beta-blockers as aids for work and concentration (Rose, 2008). Another review showed that between 5% and 35% of college students were using stimulants prescribed for ADHD for non-medical purposes (Wilens et al., 2008).
The use of medications to improve mental abilities such as memory and attention in people with mental disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), narcolepsy, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and others, demonstrated diverse and sometimes contradictory results, although mostly successful in minimizing certain traits of the diseases. However, there is a great difference between treating and enhancing brain function, therefore, while some regard these results as proof of the efficacy of these medications as cognitive enhancers, the result may be quite different on healthy …show more content…
These discoveries will allow neuropharmacology researchers to create drugs that will be used in the treatment and prevention of mental disorders, as well as pure nootropics that might increase brain potential with minimum to non-existent side effects. This possibility, however, may be far from happening, since the challenges involved in unravelling something as complex as the brain cannot be

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