Nootropic drugs vs psychostimulants. Part 1.

Phenomenological approach

@superhimik, Geektimes

Protective clause

As a chemist, I am well aware of the possible danger of various substances for the human body and therefore accept the use of only those that are intended to preserve health. I strongly do not recommend taking any of the compounds mentioned below for a different purpose and without consulting a doctor.

My statement does not claim to be the ultimate truth.

I will start with the fact that in psychopharmacology, according to experts, there is a need to rework the existing classification of psychoactive substances. In my opinion, the proposed version of the new classification is very radically different from what we have to deal with today. However, I will conduct my narrative, limiting myself to the terminology that has been adopted so far.

So, the definition of psychostimulants is given through the enumeration of the effects caused by them. According to the Encyclopedia of Psychopharmacology, psychostimulants:

• cause euphoria;
• cheer up;
• provide motor (motor) and
• mental stimulation.

Often, the ability to relieve fatigue and drowsiness is added to these effects.

What is "remarkable" in this definition is its looping: stimulants have stimulation ... If we discard clearly non-specific signs: the ability to cause euphoria, characteristic of many drugs, for example, opiates, as well as the timoleptic effect (mood improvement), the traditional carriers of which are antidepressants, then we have mental and motor stimulation. As for drowsiness, at present there is a group of drugs (H3 receptor antagonists) that relieve drowsiness (mainly pathological), but do not belong to psychostimulants, so this sign is losing its relevance. At the same time, the ability to relieve fatigue can be attributed to less specific signs of psychostimulants.

Now let's deal with the term stimulation itself. In medicine (and in everyday life), they describe the strengthening of the function.

Given the ambiguity of the meaning of the phrase motor function enhancement, which can be understood as, for example, an increase in the volume of motor movements in a particular joint, as well as taking into account the actually observed effects of taking stimulants, I would call motor stimulation that develops when taking these drugs motor arousal.

It may be interesting to discuss the replacement of this combination with an increase in physical performance, undoubtedly caused by this class of drugs. However, physical performance is enhanced, for example, by taking anabolic steroids (by increasing muscle mass), so I do not consider the inclusion of this phrase in the definition justified.

The meaning of the phrase mental stimulation is somewhat less obvious. However, the clarifications and descriptions of the action of this group of drugs scattered across many sources allow us to conclude that mental stimulation is understood as the strengthening of higher mental functions: perception, thinking and memory.

Many psychostimulants have a very high addictive potential (there are exceptions), i.e. they easily cause addiction. However, I am not going to touch on this aspect of their action and I want to limit myself to those effects that are not destructive to the psyche, i.e. arising against the background of the introduction of small doses. This is to the question of whether it is possible to include the term mental arousal in the definition of psychostimulants. Given that this term is usually used to describe a range of psychopathological symptoms, many of which, of course, occur with overdoses, I would not do this.

A good definition option, therefore, seems to me the following. Psychostimulants are a class of psychoactive (or psychotropic) drugs that relieve fatigue, enhance higher mental functions and cause motor arousal.

Now let's move on to nootropic drugs. Everything is somewhat easier here, since there is a canonical definition given by the Romanian chemist Corneliu E. Giurgea, the discoverer of piracetam, a drug that has become the prototype of many nootropics

According to Giurgia, nootropic drugs:

• improve memory and learning ability;
• prevent the loss of developed conditioned reflexes and a memorable trace under the action of agents that usually cause such loss (hypoxia, cranial electric shock, pharmacological amnesic agents);
• protect the brain from chemical and physical damage;
• enhance the effectiveness of the regulatory functions of the cortex and subcortex;
• do not possess pharmacological properties of drugs of other groups;
• they have a small number of side effects.

Considering that Giurgia developed his ideas in the 60-80s of the last century, and since then the medical and biological sciences have not stood still, I would modernize the wording as follows. Nootropic drugs are a class of psychoactive substances that improve memory and learning ability, as well as increase the body's adaptation to adverse environmental factors.

Do they improve it?
"The active substance of nootropil piracetam is the basis of about 20 similar drugs on the Russian market, for example, piratropil, lucetam and a number of drugs, in the name of which the word "piracetam" is present. This substance is widely used in neurological, psychiatric and narcological practice. The Medline database contains publications from the 1990s on clinical studies, according to which piracetam is moderately effective in the recovery of a patient after a stroke, as well as in the treatment of dementia and dyslexia. However, the results of a randomized multicenter PASS (Piracetam in Acute Stroke Study) in 2001 showed the lack of effectiveness of piracetam in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke. There is also no information about improving the functioning of the cerebral cortex in healthy people after taking piracetam. 
Source: CITOFARMA.RU – VM.

• nootropic drugs may not protect against all adverse environmental factors. This usually refers to hypoxia, neuropsychiatric stress, overload, etc.;
• it is still completely unclear whether nootropic drugs are capable of improving memory and learning ability normally or only with various kinds of amnesic (causing amnesia, i.e. memory loss) effects that simulate pathological conditions, as noted by Giurgia.

So, the phenomenological approach revealed a significant similarity between the 2 classes of drugs discussed: they are both able to have a positive effect on higher mental functions. However, at the molecular level, this positive effect is realized by psychostimulants and nootropic drugs in different ways. Nevertheless, since the same drug can simultaneously act on several targets, it is possible to create drugs that combine the properties of a psychostimulant and a nootropic.

To be continued.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  27.04.2016