🔗 Modafinil

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Transhumanism 🔗 Neuroscience 🔗 Pharmacology 🔗 Psychoactive and Recreational Drugs

Modafinil, sold under the brand name Provigil among others, is a medication to treat sleepiness due to narcolepsy, shift work sleep disorder, or obstructive sleep apnea. While it has seen off-label use as a purported cognitive enhancer, the research on its effectiveness for this use is not conclusive. It is taken by mouth.

Common side effects include headache, anxiety, trouble sleeping, and nausea. Serious side effects may include allergic reactions such as anaphylaxis, Stevens–Johnson syndrome, misuse, and hallucinations. It is unclear if use during pregnancy is safe. The amount of medication used may need to be adjusted in those with kidney or liver problems. It is not recommended in those with an arrhythmia, significant hypertension, or left ventricular hypertrophy. How it works is not entirely clear. One possibility is that it may affect the areas of the brain involved with the sleep cycle.

Modafinil was approved for medical use in the United States in 1998. In the United States it is classified as a schedule IV controlled substance. In the United Kingdom it is a prescription only medication. It is available as a generic medication. In the United Kingdom it costs the NHS about £105.21 a month as of 2018. In the United States the wholesale cost per month is about US$34.20 as of 2018. In 2016, it was the 284th most prescribed medication in the United States, with more than a million prescriptions.