TWIL: How the new drug works

I love knowing how drugs work. For example, MS eats myelin, the outer layer of your nerves, so one of my MS meds was a syringe of decoy myelin. I mean, I have no idea how they made it, maybe it was hamster myelin, but whatever. I know the general plan of attack.

This Modafinil/Provigil stimulant does not have one general plan. It has four little plans to keep you awake and alert. I feel like a committee had four wakefulness drug proposals, couldn’t decide, figured make the drug out of all of it. So this drug is a hodge-podge of the four schemes below. Just a hint of each. Not getting addicted.

1. It is the opposite of an antihistamine. Antihistamine makes you stop swelling or itching, but makes you sleepy. So this is a prohistamine. Maybe it’s a mirror molecule of Benadryl.
2. It’s the opposite of Gabapentin, which slows the synapses of seizure-having people. (More proof that Gary’s brain is too fast and my brain is too slow. Zombie Goldilocks would give the brains in our house a poor review.)
3. It tickles particular nerves in the hypothalamus that keep people awake. It’s astonishing to me that they mapped the brain enough that they know the tiny spot where the “awake” switch is.
4. It regulates your dopamine so you feel a slow but steady supply of the hormone that answers the question, “Why bother?”

I don’t know which of the four mechanisms is working or if it’s just the placebo effect, but I’ve got small plans for this weekend and big plans for cooking and gardening on Easter break.