The good grade pill

[Whatdidyou]

I don't really get it. Whover said "blame the doctor" is crazy. These are young adults who are making their OWN choices to take "pills" so that they can study harder or have an experience. If anyone is to be blamed for the consequences it is the students. Having to get a full blown phych eval is a bit overboard. Health consequences or not, isn't this a free country?

I also would not consider it cheating at all.

[momofthreeboys]

Having to get a full blown phych eval is a bit overboard.

Are you kidding me? These are amphetamines...uppers...class II drugs... they ain't pot and they ain't advil. They are addictive and no one should be taking them without a full psych eval and under the watchful eye of a physician and a psychiatrist. Read up on amphetamines and long term effects. Sure it's your body but if it isn't your prescription...it's also illegal.

[MommaJ]

Shrinkrap, when I said no amount of Adderall could turn an A student into a B student, I was referring to the use of stimulants as discussed in the article--that is, by students without a valid ADHD diagnosis.

[Lemaitre1]

I suffered a stroke five years ago that caused cognitive deficits and most alarming at the time my blood pressure dropped dramatically, a very dangerous situation, and the doctors at the stroke center in the hospital where I was taken were only able to stabilize me with large doses of ritalin.

The cognitive benefits of the drug were stunning. I had earned my undergraduate degree in Astrophysics but instead of pursuing graduate studies in Astronomy I went to medical school because the Math and Physics required for graduate study in Astronomy and Astrophysics were beyond my ability to understand. Despite the fact that I had suffered brain damage while I was recuperating and taking high doses of ritalin I got out my old graduate level Math, Physics and Astronomy textbooks and was amazed to find that topics in Relativistic Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanichs that I could not understand when I was a student at the University of Maryland College Park were suddenly very clear to me. I attempted to do advanced problems in these texts that I could never even understand when I was a student and I was able to solve them easily while taking the ritalin.

These drugs in high doses are very effective but also very dangerous. Even though I am 61 years old with brain damage from my stroke, I honestly believe that with a high enough dose of ritalin I could go to Caltech as a graduate student in Astrophysics and absolutely crush my classmates. I would be troubled though by the ethical issues involved of actually doing that.

These drugs are very toxic at high doses and both the benefits of the drug and the toxicities increase with increasing dose. Other people can probably not obtain the increase in cognitive functioning that I did because for some peculiar reason my physiology is somewhat unique. The doctors were only able to stabilize me with high doses of ritalin because for some reason while I benefit from the positive effects of the drug I appear to be immune to the toxicities of ritalin. Doctors familiar with my situation say they have never seen this kind of response in any other patient.

Therefore I caution people not to take high doses of these drugs to improve cognitive functioning because you will almost certainly be severely harmed or killed by a high dose which is anything over 60 mg/day for ritalin.

[Shrinkrap]

^ "Doctors familiar with my situation say they have never seen this kind of response in any other patient."

I agree, and don't know that that response is common or typical, although many are convinced that it is. There is research to suggest there is a dose response curve, and a dose after which things get worse and not better.

J Am Acad Child Psychiatry. 1982 May;21(3):237-42.
Dosage effects of methylphenidate on paired associate learning: positive/negative placebo responders.
Gan J, Cantwell

Yes, it's old, but Cantwell was "the man", and there is newer, related work

http://www.benthamscience.com/open/t...1/11TOPSYJ.pdf


I have seen this on measures like the computerized continuous performance test, even when the person doing the test thinks they are performing better. Of course, I can't be sure the CPT reflects how people perform in real life.

[Shrinkrap]

Actually, these are better ( for those interested in the research)

http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...87/4/519.short

http://ldx.sagepub.com/content/44/2/196.abstract

[Lemaitre1]

@ Shrinkrap, It now appears that the increase I have experienced in cognitive functioning is not just a subjective feeling on my part. I do not feel like I am up to the demands of being a physician 24 hours a day any longer so I took an employment exam in April for the State of California for a position as a physicist. To to be eligible to take the test you needed a minimum of bachelors degree in Physics. I was only given one week of notification that the exam, which is given periodically throughout the year, would be given on that day. I studied very hard for the week but really did not think my chances were that good since few applicants pass the exam and it is taken by graduates of UC Berkeley, Stanford and Caltech since it pays well with good benefits and requires no experience. I talked to one of the other applicant who had just graduated from UC Berkeley.

I just got the results back and not only did I pass but I earned the highest score ever achieved in the six years this test has been administered. Some of my strong performance was probably due to a correct guess that the exam would focus mainly on Relativity and Quantum Physics which I concentrated my studying on. However, I can not help but think the large dose of ritalin I took before the test played the decisive role.

This has put me into somewhat of a moral quandry and my inclination now is to decline to take the position. My unique physiology which allows me to obtain the cognitive benefits of high doses of stimulants without suffering any of the toxicities gave me a special advantage not available to others. These large doses of ritalin are prescribed to me to keep me alive and living a fairly normal life, not to crush the competition on Physics exams used to select new employees.

[Shrinkrap]

I just wanted to point out that your response is very unusual, and the research does not indicate that most people become "smarter" or learn more because of stimulants, and that higher doses do not make most people learn even more. In fact, the opposite might be true.

The results in studies for people with TBI (traumatic brain injury)are modest too.

They may, on the other hand, be more motivated, and produce more widgets, at least for awhile.

I assume what is demanding about being a physician was not remedied by the Ritalin, and that the demands of being a physicist won't be a problem? It sounds like you have always wanted to be a physicist. I often wonder how much wanting something augments at least the short term effects of stimulants. There was a recent study on rats about something similar.

BRB

I'm back....the lay version
"Slacker rat; worker rat"
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...at,_worker_rat

Peer reviewed version
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/va...pp201230a.html

[ThisMortalSoil]

From what my friends have told me, it's basically the Konami Code / easy mode for studying. Lord knows I'd probably be super productive if I took ADD medication, but I don't have ADD... I just have a shaky work ethic.

[Elleya]

Whoo, kids like this are helping contribute to the shortage of Adderall that people like my little brother actually need to function daily.

Yippee!

I always thought it was sad that people thought they needed things like this to do well.

[MommaJ]

I think Lemaitre is one of the X-Men--it's the only explanation for his Ritalin-based magic powers.

[fauve]

MommaJ- Phi Beta Kappa is limited to no more than ten percent of Harvard's graduating class- around 168 total.

You can bet Adderall plays a role in the crush of competition to attain the near-perfect GPAs required for the honor. Use of the drug is rampant at Harvard, with plenty of legal prescriptions to supply illegal usage. Perhaps there should be a blood-tested category for PBK-sans stimulants.

[DonnaL]

I do know of a neurologist who occasionally uses a stimulant for depression (sometimes with an SSRI). He also uses T3 (thyroid supplementation) and hormones (progesterone cream).

Why would a male (and presumably non-transgender) doctor use progesterone cream? Are you sure it isn't testosterone cream?

[litotes]

As a high school student myself, I was very angry to read about this in the NYTimes. I go to a smaller private school in the Midwest, and Adderall isn't much of a presence. I know a few kids who have used it, but it's not a rampant thing, and no one ever feels like they need to use it to keep up with everyone else. I've accomplished great things (>2350, etc) without ever having used any of these stimulants.

So I'm a little bit mad to hear about the rampant use of these drugs on the East Coast and presumably the West Coast. Not only is it unsafe and unnatural, it also debases everyone else's work and gives many kids an unsafe and unfair advantage. I wish schools, parents, and doctors would do more to stop this terrible trend that is apparently rampant among some of my peers, and I am thankful that the NYTimes has shed some light on the issue.

[MommaJ]

You can bet Adderall plays a role in the crush of competition to attain the near-perfect GPAs required for the honor.

Students may be taking stimulants in the hope or belief that it will secure them a perfect GPA, but that doesn't mean that Adderall or Ritalin is actually a factor in achieving straight A's. Notwithstanding Lemaitre's miraculous tale, these drugs don't make anyone "smarter".