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Published On July 23, 2009
CLINICAL RESEARCH
Defined: Cosmetic Neurology
Some drugs lend extreme wakefulness and focus—but are the enhancements worth the risks?
cosmetic neurology: coined in 2004 by University of Pennsylvania neurologist Anjan Chatterjee for the use of drugs to hone cognition.
For their intended users, Adderall and Ritalin calm the frenzy of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, while Provigil perks up the excessively sleepy. But for everyone else, these drugs lend extreme focus and wakefulness, attractive effects for the overextended college student or older worker trying to keep up with younger, more agile minds. Their use has become commonplace even in the scientific community; in a recent online survey, Nature found that 20% of respondents admitted to using acuity-boosting drugs. The downside: The long-term effects of prolonged neuroenhancement are unknown, and because such drugs are easily obtained (illegally) online, users are more susceptible to abusing them.
Dispatches

What Makes a Kid Clumsy? More research into coordination disorders shows why some children are more prone to trip, fumble and spill the milk.

Eyes in the Sky Satellite data can be used to assess the health impact of dust storms and the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. Additional applications could be on the horizon.

Could This One Change Help Curb the Opioid Crisis? To prescribe an effective bridge to addiction treatment, emergency physicians must get special training and receive a waiver. Making that process easier—or eliminating the requirement altogether—could make a big impact.

One Thing Leads to the Next Robert Lefkowitz is best known for revealing the mechanism behind hundreds of drugs in use today. But he thinks of himself as a storyteller first and has a new book out to make his case.

Podcast: The Research Year That Was Medical research labs have faced a difficult stretch of closed buildings and competing priorities. Yet they have also produced milestone discoveries—and not only on COVID-19.

The Shape of Us Two milestone discoveries in protein modeling promise to change the fundamentals of drug discovery.

Universal Flu Vaccines Move Forward In the shadow of coronavirus vaccine development, another vaccine was making solid progress.

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