How Modafinil Impacts Creativity and Problem-Solving

Modafinil is a wakefulness-promoting drug that has gained popularity as a cognitive enhancer. It is said to improve memory, decision-making capabilities, and creativity.

However, some research shows that Modafinil decreases divergent thinking (problem-solving) in healthy individuals with high baseline creative performance. This is not a good result, and it should be replicated with larger samples.

Modafinil Increases Attention

While popular press reports often imply that smart drugs such as Ritalin and Provigil can boost brain performance across the board, this is not the case. In fact, these drugs are effective on a small number of tasks, mainly those that require attention and executive function. However, they do not improve all cognitive functions across the board and sometimes do more harm than good, especially in creative problem-solving.

Among non-sleep-deprived healthy individuals, buy modafinil australia does not enhance performance on basic testing paradigms, and some studies have even reported impairments in divergent thinking. The only consistently positive findings in this area relate to the improvement of prefrontal-dependent cognitive functions in psychiatric populations with ADHD and schizophrenia.

In some studies, modafinil significantly increases performance on complex tasks that involve multiple memory domains and attentional control (for example, a task involving both short-term memory and working memory and a chess-playing task in which participants were forced to make fewer moves per game than their opponents). In other studies, modafinil has improved performance on certain tasks that require planning and decision making with delays and vigilance.

In addition, some studies have found that modafinil can improve a range of neuropsychological and creativity tests in the narcolepsy patient population. These improvements appear to be related to the drug’s ability to reduce the lapses in concentration during prolonged wakefulness.

Modafinil Improves Memory

In addition to boosting attention, modafinil can improve memory and learning. In a randomized double-blind study, participants taking 200 mg of modafinil for a 4-day regimen performed better than placebo on a task that required attentional control (the White Cube Staircase Test or WCST). Modafinil also improved performance on a series of tests measuring cognitive flexibility and learning, including a version of the Hayling Sentence Completion Test. The fMRI data suggested that this is because modafinil increases activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, areas implicated in cognitive control.

Modafinil has also been shown to increase the ability to remember visual pattern recognition after delay. In a separate study, daily modafinil administration significantly improved the learning curve of mice in a serial reversal discrimination task, suggesting that it enhances both impulsivity and the recollection of past experiences in these animals. Moreover, modafinil increases the effectiveness of extinction training in rats, which may be due to its direct effect on the anterior cingulate cortex and mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus.

Studies examining the effects of modafinil on creativity have been less conclusive. However, a recent review of 24 research papers found that modafinil improves planning and decision making in non-sleep deprived healthy volunteers on a variety of neuropsychological tasks, but it does not affect verbal IQ or other measures of creativity.

Modafinil Improves Focus

While Modafinil (the generic name for Provigil) is a pharmaceutical drug approved to treat sleep disorders, it is increasingly being used by healthy people as a cognitive enhancer. This is perhaps partly because it appears to improve focus and motivation. Modafinil is also a central nervous system stimulant, and as such it increases levels of catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine and adrenalin) and fast neurotransmitters such as glutamate and GABA. In a number of studies, it has been shown to improve performance on various cognitive tests, including digit span and sustained attention tasks.

One study examined the effects of modafinil (Modawake 200) on divergent thinking and convergent thinking creativity tasks in healthy non-sleep deprived volunteers. It found that modafinil improved alertness, vigilance and verbal working memory but did not affect non-verbal creative thinking tasks. However, it did significantly improve convergent thinking creativity performance (Group Embedded Task). It was also found that modafinil increased task motivation. In fact, participants on modafinil reported significantly more pleasure in completing the individual creative tasks compared to those on placebo.

The authors note that this was a very small study and that the results should be interpreted with caution. However, their findings are consistent with other studies demonstrating that modafinil can improve creative problem-solving, but that it does not improve general cognition. Whether this is due to ceiling effects or a limited sample size is not clear, but it is worth keeping an eye on for future research.

Modafinil Increases Creativity

Despite the popular perception that smart drugs like Ritalin and Provigil make people more creative, this is not always the case. In fact, some people may actually perform worse on these so-called cognitive enhancers, depending on their creativity baseline. In a study published in September 2014, Mohamed examined the effects of modafinil on divergent and convergent thinking tasks of creativity. He found that those who were not creative to begin with performed better on the modafinil than placebo group, but that those who were creative from the start showed impaired performance.

He used the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (ATTA), a standardized test that measures divergent and convergent thinking skills with two picture items and a verbal task. He performed a two-way ANOVA using drug (modafinil vs. placebo) and creativity baseline trait as independent variables, and RAT scores as dependent variable. The results showed a significant drug and creativity baseline interaction, F(3,60) = 5.318, p = 0.023, d = 0.80. Those who were low in creativity personality trait performed higher on the ATTA after modafinil treatment than those who were high.

The results of this study support the idea that the brain needs to be relaxed and open to perform creative tasks. However, there are limitations to this study that should be taken into account. First, this was a small-scale trial with a relatively small number of participants. Additionally, the participants in this study were healthy adults, not people with ADHD. Further research is needed to determine whether modafinil has the same effect on convergent and divergent thinking in people with ADHD.