Naked Science Forum

General Science => General Science => Topic started by: thedoc on 31/01/2013 23:02:52

Title: 'Smart pills' for Students?
Post by: thedoc on 31/01/2013 23:02:52
The Naked Scientists don’t just sit in the buff in the studio interviewing scientists.  Oh no!  We also get dressed and visit schools across the UK. We visited Nene Park Academy in Peterborough to discuss a new drug trend that appears to be hitting the UK classrooms.  
Read a transcript of the interview by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1000086/)

or [chapter podcast=1000075 track=12.11.20/Naked_Neuroscience_12.11.20_1000330.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd) Listen to it now[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/12.11.20/Naked_Neuroscience_12.11.20_1000330.mp3)
Title: Re: 'Smart pills' for Students?
Post by: Minerva on 01/02/2013 14:02:19
Did you find a lot of misconceptions about these?  A straw poll of my friends revealed some very strange ideas of how they work and what they may do-some of it arises from misconceptions of how the brain works though.  I found people think these pills somehow 'unlock' innate intelligence like in the film "Limitless". 
But I do have some experience of these-a while back I had to take some medication that is renowned for causing brain fog and I had an exam.  In my case they didnt make things any easier while I was on the medication-my working memory was shot at some points and by the time I got to the end of a sentence I couldnt remember how it started and Piracetam was no perceivable help in that respect.
However, once I came off medication the effect was quite noticeable and for me it seemed to have the effect of keeping recently learned things fresher so allowing connections between data to be much easier and more likely.  So when I read something new and it sparked an initial inkling of a connection with something I'd read previously it seemed like much more semantic information came to mind before I had to look it up. 
But unfortunately you still have to put the hard slog in first.......I hope I dont see the day when a pill makes you educated just from reading-there's nothing quite like the satisfaction of a dropped penny...... [:)]