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Commentary: Responsible cognitive enhancement for all (AOP)
The growing demand for cognitive enhancement within a healthy population requires a response, say leading figures in neuroscience, ethics and regulation in a Commentary online in Nature this week. They go on to call for a number of actions. Their arguments are stimulated by the previously documented off-label use of such drugs by students and professors.
Stimulants such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and modafinil (Provigil), familiar as treatments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy, respectively, are increasingly used as ‘smart drugs’ by students to improve their grades and more widely as a boost to intellectual creativity. Society needs to respond to the demand for cognitive enhancement: the trend has been resisted by some on the grounds of it being ‘unnatural’, ‘medicalization’ and a source of social inequality.
The authors argue for a presumption that the use of such drugs by healthy people is a benefit to them and to society, while taking due regard of justified concerns about safety, coercion and fairness of access. Both research and new policies are needed, say the authors, along with ‘careful and limited legislative action to channel cognitive-enhancement technologies into useful paths’. They conclude that new thinking and actions by physicians, educators, regulators and others can maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of the use of ‘smart drugs’.
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