CLIP: Brain Enhancement is Wrong, Right?
C. Ben Mitchell
March 9, 2008
Smartening Up
Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right?
By BENEDICT CAREY
SO far no one is demanding that asterisks be attached to Nobels,
Pulitzers or Lasker awards. Government agents have not been raiding
anthropology departments, riffling book bags, testing professors*
urine. And if there are illicit trainers on campuses, shady tutors with
wraparound sunglasses and ties to basement labs in Italy, no one has
exposed them.
Yet an era of doping may be looming in academia, and it has ignited a
debate about policy and ethics that in some ways echoes the national
controversy over performance enhancement accusations against elite
athletes like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
In a recent commentary in the journal Nature, two Cambridge University
researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted
to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and
Provigil, which promotes wakefulness, to improve their academic
performance. The former is approved to treat attention deficit disorder,
the latter narcolepsy, and both are considered more effective, and more
widely available, than the drugs circulating in dorms a generation ago.
Letters flooded the journal, and an online debate immediately bubbled
up. The journal has been conducting its own, more rigorous survey, and
so far at least 20 respondents have said that they used the drugs for
nonmedical purposes, according to Philip Campbell, the journal*s
editor in chief. The debate has also caught fire on the Web site of The
Chronicle of Higher Education, where academics and students are sniping
at one another.
But is prescription tweaking to perform on exams, or prepare
presentations and grants, really the same as injecting hormones to chase
down a home run record, or win the Tour de France?
Some argue that such use could be worse, given the potentially deep
impact on society. And the behavior of academics in particular, as
intellectual leaders, could serve as an example to others.
In his book *Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology
Revolution,* Francis Fukuyama raises the broader issue of performance
enhancement: *The original purpose of medicine is to heal the sick,
not turn healthy people into gods.* He and others point out that
increased use of such drugs could raise the standard of what is
considered *normal* performance and widen the gap between those who
have access to the medications and those who don*t - and even erode
the relationship between struggle and the building of character.
*Even though stimulants and other cognitive enhancers are intended
for legitimate clinical use, history predicts that greater availability
will lead to an increase in diversion, misuse and abuse,* wrote Dr.
Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and James
Swanson of the University of California at Irvine, in a letter to
Nature. *Among high school students, abuse of prescription medications
is second only to cannabis use.*
But others insist that the ethics are not so clear, and that academic
performance is different in important ways from baseball, or cycling.
*I think the analogy with sports doping is really misleading, because
in sports it*s all about competition, only about who*s the best
runner or home run hitter,* said Martha Farah, director of the Center
for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. *In
academics, whether you*re a student or a researcher, there is an
element of competition, but it*s secondary. The main purpose is to try
to learn things, to get experience, to write papers, to do experiments.
So in that case if you can do it better because you*ve got some drug
on board, that would on the face of things seem like a plus.*
She and other midcareer scientists interviewed said that, as far as
they knew, very few of their colleagues used brain-boosting drugs
regularly. Many have used Provigil for jet lag, or even to stay vertical
for late events. But most agreed that the next generation of scientists,
now in graduate school and college, were more likely to use the drugs as
study aids and bring along those habits as they moved up the ladder.
Surveys of college students have found that from 4 percent to 16
percent say they have used stimulants or other prescription drugs to
improve their academic performance - usually getting the pills from
other students.
*Suppose you*re preparing for the SAT, or going for a job interview
- in those situations where you have to perform on that day, these drugs
will be very attractive,* said Dr. Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge, a
co-author with Sharon Morein-Zamir of the recent essay in Nature. *The
desire for cognitive enhancement is very strong, maybe stronger than for
beauty, or athletic ability.*
Jeffrey White, a graduate student in cell biology who has attended
several institutions, said that those numbers sounded about right.
*You can usually tell who*s using them because they can be angry,
testy, hyperfocused, they don*t want to be bothered,* he said.
Mr. White said he did not use the drugs himself, considering them an
artificial shortcut that could set people up for problems later on.
*What happens if you*re in a fast-paced surgical situation and
they*re not available?* he asked. *Will you be able to function at
the same level?*
Yet such objections - and philosophical concerns - can vaporize when
students and junior faculty members face other questions: What happens
if I don*t make the cut? What if I*m derailed by a bad test score,
or a mangled chemistry course?
One person who posted anonymously on the Chronicle of Higher Education
Web site said that a daily regimen of three 20-milligram doses of
Adderall transformed his career: *I*m not talking about being able
to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps),* the posting
said. *I*m talking about being able to take on twice the
responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage
better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative
strategies.*
Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, an associate professor of neurology at the
University of Pennsylvania who foresaw this debate in a 2004 paper,
argues that the history of cosmetic surgery - scorned initially as vain
and unnatural but now mainstream as a form of self-improvement - is a
guide to predicting the trajectory of cosmetic neurology, as he calls
it.
*We worship at the altar of progress, and to the demigod of
choice,* Dr. Chatterjee said. *Both are very strong undercurrents
in the culture and the way this is likely to be framed is: *Look, we
want smart people to be as productive as possible to make everybody*s
lives better. We want people performing at the max, and if that means
using these medicines, then great, then we should be free to choose what
we want as long as we*re not harming someone.* I*m not taking that
position, but we have this winner-take-all culture and that is the way
it is likely to go.*
People already use legal performance enhancers, he said, from
high-octane cafe Americanos to the beta-blockers taken by musicians to
ease stage fright, to antidepressants to improve mood. *So the
question with all of these things is, Is this enhancement, or a matter
of removing the cloud over our better selves?* he said.
The public backlash against brain-enhancement, if it comes, may hit
home only after the practice becomes mainstream, Dr. Chatterjee
suggested. *You can imagine a scenario in the future, when you*re
applying for a job, and the employer says, *Sure, you*ve got the
talent for this, but we require you to take Adderall.* Now, maybe you
do start to care about the ethical implications.*
Home
World U.S. N.Y. / Region Business Technology Science Health Sports
Opinion Arts Style Travel Jobs Real Estate Automobiles Back to Top