May 22 2008
Research to check brain enhancing drugs
May 22: In future students in schools and colleges will be tested for using brain improving drugs prior to their exams. The Academy of Medical Sciences opined that even healthy people use the drugs for diseases like Alzheimer’s to enhance their alertness and memory. Like athletes urine drug tests will be conducted in children if the issue get worse.
As an attempt to study the use of psychoactive drugs and its impact on brain function the academy set up a working group in the year 2006 that is led by Sir Gabriel Horn, the neuroscience expert at the Cambridge University. Experts also suggest that regulations are needed to check the unfair advantage in exams with the help of memory enhancing drugs.
Researchers have found that many of the addictive drugs and some behavioural addictions including gambling will gain control over neural circuits in a particular region of the brain. The genes that make the brain vulnerable to mental illness have also been identified. Experts who contacted the focus group among the public during their research said the research has made limited progress in drug treatment.
They also added that the most of the medicines used for curing drug addiction fails to cure it completely, but they only try to replace the substance with less addictive and hazardous ones. The group report also suggest that the vaccines could be developed to neutralise addiction, more investment and better co-ordination between industry and government is needed to make that feasible. The researchers also focus on developing better brain enhancing drugs or cognitive enhancers to fulfil this purpose.
UK alone spends £15bn in social and economic costs in connection with drug addiction. An average of one among 10 persons is expected to suffer mental illness. On this backdrop this research deserves far reaching significance.
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