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December 20, 2007

Brain-Boosting Drugs Hit the Faculty Lounge

Some university faculty members have started popping “smart” pills to enhance their mental energy and ability to work long hours.

In a commentary published in Nature on Thursday, Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir of the University of Cambridge revealed an informal survey showing that a handful of colleagues, all involved in studying drugs that help people perform better mentally, would take the drugs.

The notion raises hackles in some parts of academe. “It smells to me a lot like taking steroids for physical prowess,” said Barbara Prudhomme White, an associate professor of occupational therapy at the University of New Hampshire, who has studied the abuse of Ritalin by college students. With the recent revelations about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional baseball, she sees parallels between striving athletes and faculty members. Read the full story here.

Should the life of the mind be chemically enhanced when, say, a professor needs to crank out a tenure-worthy paper? Let us know your thoughts in a comment below.

Comments

1. Anything that will help is welcome. It’s better than spending money on anti-plagiarism software, or students habitually absent or asleep in class. It certainly is not in the same category as drugs that enhance physical prowess.

   — A. Professor    Dec 20, 08:27 PM    #

2. Just give me 7.5 hours of sleep, a cuddle with my wife, a strawberry-banana flax yoghurt smoothie, a 40 minute walk with my dog, oatmeal…and a cup of that fine Puerto Rican coffee – and I can take on the world … maybe these should be illegal!

   — Vlad Kunko    Dec 20, 08:58 PM    #

3. If you’re a dee-dee-dee, you’ll only be an “enlightened” dee-dee-dee! ... you can always O-Dee-dee-dee.

   — antropos    Dec 20, 09:02 PM    #

4. Weren’t the same comments made about the supposedly intellectual side-effects of mind-altering hallucinogens in the 1960s? This whole discussion is absurd—drugs to ‘enhance’ your mind…what would we say to one of our own children if they approached us with such dribble?

   — History Professor    Dec 20, 10:22 PM    #

5. What about using these drugs for those with lesser capacities or disabilities? Just like some drugs improve motor functions after some diseases; is it wrong to give “mind-enhancing” drugs to people who cannot get into college? Or graduate school?

   — Psprof    Dec 21, 05:38 AM    #

6. I have basically the same question as PSprof. If some individuals are lucky enough to be born with a brain chemistry that makes them smart or resourceful or whatever the feature may be, and others are not, why should the latter sit back and let the former take all the glory and the coveted positions in society, and the accompanying material benefits? Is there something that is automatically just about the features we have at birth, no matter how uneven they are? And the unlucky will have to compete in the marketplace with the lucky. If I am born into a free-market society with all kinds of mental and physical endowments, I would definitely be against the drugs too, but only if I was deeply immoral.

   — Philosophy Prof    Dec 21, 08:33 AM    #

7. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there’s no such thing as a drug-enhanced boost that you won’t pay for later with a corresponding dip. Remember the three laws of thermodynamics:
   1. You can’t win.
   2. You can’t break even.
   3. You can’t get out of the game.
   Sooner (usually) rather than later, you’ll pay for your thrills.

   — Dan Kirklin    Dec 21, 09:58 AM    #

8. Enhancement drugs are here, and they are not going to go away. An interesting question is how much more will these pharaceuticals stratify society. If insurances will not cover enhancement drugs, and many plans do not cover sexual perfromance enhancers, these cognition enhancers will only be available to those who can afford them.

   — EFD    Dec 21, 10:10 AM    #

9. Is it that a person IS more productive or do they just THINK they are?
   Is the quality of work better than before they put their minds and bodies at risk?

   — Marty    Dec 21, 10:23 AM    #

10. Thank you Dan (#7).Finally someone whose brain is still ticking without being tempted to take miracle drugs. Thanks for your concise comment.Medical conditions seeking alleviation from unbearable pain is one thing but taking drugs to appear as superhero is unethical. It will lead to even more expectations and stress for all involved. It will just feed into the vicious cycle of performing even better. Why not go back to honesty and admit that there are limits one can accept and that there are expectations one can not meet?How about working against the pressure of the system? Why trying to be a conformist by taking little helper pills?

    — sn    Dec 21, 10:39 AM    #

11. “Enchancers” is the wrong word for these drugs (Inderal, etc.). They are “clarifiers.” They block pathological brain processes (ADD, narcolepsy, anxiety) that retard normal brain function, essentially freeing up the brain to work at its full potential. The only known substance that actually enhances performance is caffeine.

    — marci    Dec 21, 11:27 AM    #

12. Yes, thank you, Dan. It reminds me of that short story, “Flowers for Algernon.”

    — hope    Dec 21, 11:51 AM    #

13. What are the side effects short term and long term? It would seem that our society wants a pill to fix anything and everything. What about hard work, prioritizing your time, turning off your tv, iPod, email, internet access, etc.. for a short time to get your work done. How would you feel about success and accomplishment that is only possible with the aid of the wonder “smart” pill to enhance your mental energy? Will the academic world measure your success for or against tenure if you utilized “smart” pills? If we go down this path will everyone need them?

    — Karen    Dec 21, 12:20 PM    #

14. Re: #6, while I agree there is nothing “automatically just” about what we’ve got at birth, there are harms to the individual and to others by what we accept individuals to do, and that is where a line must be drawn. Come as you are and learn to do what you can with it: we grow our brains and our brawn. This is not to advocate removal of wheelchair ramps or other structures that enable people to enter workplaces and contribute what they can. That is on a different level. But should ADHD drugs be dispensed freely because they improve memory and short term performance among the unafflicted? Knowing their power, is it immoral for you not to obtain these drugs and dispense to struggling students, as you see fit? At least for borderline cases, performance after a spell of taking these drugs can be more challenging than before starting them.

    — wm    Dec 21, 12:56 PM    #

15. Some of these comments are a little off. Mental effort is not controlled by the laws of thermodyamics; there’s no ‘conservation of ideas’ or any defined measure of mental output. We’ve seen the astounding talents of savants as inspiration. This discussion reminds me of the North Dakotan (sorry, I’m from Montana) who gripes about how slowly his new saw works, and when the dealer starts it up, yells, “Holy cow, what’s that noise?” There may be unexplored capabilities in ‘our tools’ we haven’t dreamed of. Using these brain-enhancing pills might be more like popping vitamin C, not steroids. In the meantime, the suggestions of #2 and #13 sound pretty good.

    — Chuck Levitan    Dec 21, 01:03 PM    #

16. Haven’t we seen this movie before? Scientist works on compound, scientist tries compound on self, and … Doesn’t this always turn out badly in the last reel?

    Maybe these drugs are no more dangerous than Vitamin C. Maybe they are the next Thalidomide. Without the appropriate research, we simply don’t know—and, last I looked, we don’t do brain replacements yet. On that basis alone, I would strongly recommend that people stay away from this.

    There is something fundamentally wrong about a society where unafflicted people seek external solutions (e.g., pills) to what are essentially internal challenges (i.e., coming to grips with the challenges of producing intellectual achievement). Much of the #2 and #13 comments should be considered closely.

    — Mark Koltko-Rivera    Dec 21, 01:57 PM    #

17. Fascinating to me that this should come up three days after a similar dinner-table conversation. So far, no comment has touched on potential societal benefits if, say, city planners or engineers or people working on switchgrass ethanol took drugs that actually did clarify or “boost” their thinking (whatever that might mean). Let’s leave aside the moralizing (“nothing good without a backlash”) or judgment of efficacy. This is not an athletic contest. Thinking, research, and innovative perspectives are supposed to be social goods.
    If or when such drugs (beyond caffeine) exist, through what lens will they be viewed? High-school competition? Grant acquisition? Working for a better world? Does the cultural icon of the liberal individual so dominate our thinking that we can’t see anything larger?

    — Bob R.    Dec 21, 02:31 PM    #

18. The first paragraph of the story says that people ARE taking smartness enhancing drugs, and the second paragraph says that some people say that they WOULD take them.

    Which is it?

    — Penny    Dec 21, 02:34 PM    #

19. Anyone that doesn’t recognize the advantages, frankly, just doesn’t know enough about these drugs to be making a qualified assessment. As an adult on a daily regimen of three 20MG Adderall (sustained dextro-amphetamines like ritalin, but without the “crash”), I can say without an ounce of uncertainty that this gives me an advantage over my collegues. I’m not talking about being able to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps), 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 & more creative strategies, and generally just improve my productivity. Now is this because of an accurate diagnosis of adult ADHD? Should I assume that I would be performing at such potential if I were “normal?” If so, then why aren’t my collegues able to perform anywhere close to my levels? If so, then why am I frequently told by friends to “stop making them look bad?” If I truly were being held back by my “adult ADHD,” and the drugs have corrected this and made me “normal,” then the only logical explaination is that every one of my collegues must be undiagnosed adult ADHD cases. I think it’s safe to say that’s not the case.

    So one can argue that the “unfair advantage” part it is relative to the person’s performance without it, but we know that’s still not quite hitting the nail on the head. I won’t lie: I’ve got a secret weapon and I know it. Do I feel guilty about it? Absolutely not. Perhaps that’s a clash of ethics, perhaps not, but when I’m not taking it, I’m lazy, depressed and unterested. When I’m on it, I pursue knowledge, I seek out a better, more efficient way of doing things; there’s almost nothing that doesn’t interest me and almost nothing that doesn’t make sense to me the first time it’s explained. I “see” potential where I did not before. I like the way my mind works, not because I’m making you look bad, but because I’m accomplishing more, learning more, and acheiving more for myself or for my team. I’m able to make sense out of things that once seemed a total mystery to me. If that’s unethical, you can keep your ethics. I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for me, my team, my company, or for the greater good. If I had no collegues to be compared with, I wouldn’t care one iota, I’d still take the medication and still continue my pursuits. The unfair advantage is not in the medication, it’s in the rewards structure. I’m not too familiar with the world of academia, but if the professor has tenure already and still takes the medication, does his or her continued pursuit of knowledge (even without rewards) seem unfair? Are you jealous that he craves knowledge more than you? Would you be angry if, in taking these medications and working longer hours, said professor cures parkinsons? Was it unethical for him to do this? Of course not. So the only ethical questions that can possibly be considered here are those that occur in the pursiut of rewards. If the professor is pursuing knowledge, making potentially extraordinary breakthroughs, it’s not unfair. It’s unfair if he’s only doing it only for personal gain relative to his compettition —Or as it seems in this situation, to make tenure, or perhaps land some book deal.

    — Medicated    Dec 21, 03:17 PM    #

20. It was just a matter of time before the issues that have plagued athletics for so long would also surface in academe regarding performance enhancing drugs. Where does it stop? Does/will/should it stop? In the future, will parents of new borns immediately have their children pumped with the latest performance enhancing drugs to give them a “brain boost” right from the cradle? Has competitiveness become so enthralling to our society that we have endorsed an anything goes philosophy when it comes to gaining an edge? Seems something very wicked is amiss here.

    Medicated, it seems you’ve volunteered to be the “Barry Bonds” poster child of this whole movement. I’ve heard similar arguments from people defending their addiction to marijuana.

    — academicjock    Dec 21, 04:26 PM    #

21. Can we consider why we are critical of those who take physical performance enhancing drugs? The only reasonable objection is the negative side effects. If everyone had equal access to them, the drugs would offer no unfair advantage.

    As a student who requires drug treatment for ADD (now ADHD, but on a tangent, I disagree with the decision to require the “H”) and hopefully a future professor who does the same, I would like to strongly defend the use of these medications.

    There is nothing wrong with doing the most with what you have. There are side effects, but they are manageable. Addiction should be watched for, as with alcohol use.

    Just like physical performance enhancing drugs do nothing without exercise, any drug that would enhance brain function does not give additional knowledge, it simply helps to learn and produce.

    — Kathryn    Dec 21, 05:05 PM    #

22. Poster child? Far from it, I readily admit that it’s an unfair advantage in a situation with rewards (relative to one’s competition). Absent those rewards, however, where is the ethical dilemma in taking a drug prescribed to treat a medically perceived deficiency? I won’t care if someone is taking steroids to help heal an injury faster, but if that same person competes for a gold medal that year in the Olympics, then yes, there’s something ethically wrong with that, just as it is for a professor competing for tenure. I work to full potential when I’m non it. I’m not out to get you or anyone else, I’m just trying to do the best job that I can do and the strategy advised by my doctor has done a pretty good job of that. I’m certainly interested in hearing more about how you think the argument I made in my last post relates to marijuana addiction. If you want to twist words I can say I’ve heard alcholics tell me they drive better drunk, but we both know, no matter how much they believe it, it’s not true.

    — Medicated    Dec 21, 05:09 PM    #

23. Re: #14, I absolutely agree that these drugs probably won’t do what they promise, and that at the moment there are going to be much better ways to improve one’s cognitive function. I was just making a point about what is behind a lot of the aversion that some folks have to this kind of thing. For example, in #15 we seem to get the view that thinking is not due to neuron activity. If my mind was not physical, how could it budge my body and make it move, how could it travel with me from place to place, and how could brain-conditions like alzheimer’s disease have even the slighest impact on thinking? Come on, this is a serious discussion. Lots of people with all kinds of cognitive limitations need help, and it’ quite sick and twisted to tell them that they just need to use their free will to try harder.

    — Philosophy Prof    Dec 21, 06:34 PM    #

24. Kathryn, I also am a grad student whose ADHD and dyscalculia were not correctly diagnosed until I finished my master’s program. I’d be interested in talking with you (and any other diagnosed ADD/ADHD grad students) about this for a magazine article (and book) I’m writing. Feel free to contact me via profkemp at mac dot com .

    Everyone else: This is a REAL neurological/biochemical disorder; correct medication and accommodations put us on a level playing field; and yes, you can be brilliant AND have AD/HD and/or learning disabilities at the same time. When a grad student asks for accommodations (under federal law), don’t say asinine/illegal things like, “You should have figured all this out before you began doctoral studies” or “You wrote twice as much as everyone else, so you apparently didn’t need double time for the midterm.” Finally, playing with prescription speed (and not all AD/HD meds are speed) is a symptom of substance abuse. Stimulants like Ritalin work differently in people with AD/HD because what the drug “speeds up” is their brains’ control centers. Notice the difference: it has a calming, not an enervating, effect in people with AD/HD. It is analogous to insulin for diabetics. It allows us to focus. Once we can focus, we can proceed as usual—which includes scholarship at the highest levels.

    It never ceases to amaze me how many highly-educated people choose to remain uninformed and to spread misinformation. Learn more at chadd.org or your own campus disability services office. The intolerance of and ignorance about AD/HD and LD that I’ve encountered in grad school has been beyond shocking.

    — Robin Kemp    Dec 21, 07:15 PM    #

25. “To enervate” means “to weaken” or “to debilitate.”

    — professor x    Dec 22, 01:30 AM    #

26. I wonder if these medically perceived ‘deficiencies’ are really all deficiencies. My partner has ADHD; she is a fantastic, unmedicated first-grade teacher. Isn’t all this tinkering with brain chemistry not only a foray into the potentially irreversibly damaging, but also about our desire to fit everyone into a mold that we academics think is best?

    — madame smartypants    Dec 22, 07:41 AM    #

27. There is plenty of ignorance out there in academia land about disabilites when it comes to learning disabilitiess or ADD...Plenty of broken laws as well on the part of faculty – some of whom are not so well meaning.

    You need to separate out legitimate use from drug abuse. For adults with ADD – just as for children with ADD – these drugs are like glasses for the brain. If you need glasses to see you aren’t told you are faking. So why should it be with drugs for those with legitmate ADD???

    AS for drug abuse – well humans abuse all sorts of substances. That ADD drugs are being abused, if they really do help those without ADD, is not surprising. But why does that mean that one needs to condemn legetimate use?

    — anon    Dec 22, 07:49 PM    #

28. the analogy with baseball is silly. research is a joint effort, whether one realizes it or not. another’s good research helps us all. if you need to be hopped up on something, i won’t worry that you’ll break a record before me…

    — a phil prof    Dec 23, 04:01 PM    #

29. I have narcolepsy, fibromyalgia and REM disorder. Without my stimulents I could not even work. But even with the medications, I am often in a “cognitive fog” when I am by myself in the office working on papers or going through e-mail. I need 10 hours of sleep a day to drive safely and function as a professor. If these “enhancing drugs” are banned for educators, I may as well settle for social security disability. I failed my first round of Ph.D. qualifying exams because there was not way I could sit for an 9-hour exam and succeed.
    Once I worked out an arrangement with the university’s disability officer and my department, I was able to pass them. Now as a professor, I have to plan for 50-60 hour weeks to accomplish what someone else could do in 32-40 hours a week.

    However, it has made me sensitive to students in my classes that are struggling with their coursework or finishing tests in the allotted time. I have already 4 students seek medical help and bloom under their new medication regimin. If medications for ADHD and narcolepsy become off-limits because people are starting to take them to enhance the brainpower of normal people, we may see the medications banned altogether. Consider the legitimate need for marijauana in medical situations.

    — nldorset    Dec 23, 08:04 PM    #

30. As others have mentioned, the question isn’t, “Should we allow mind-enhancing drugs with no side effects”. The answer to that question is, of course, “Yes”. But the question really is “How sure are we that there are no side effects”—especially given our experience that side effects can often be delayed and subtle.

    — fleem    Dec 26, 08:38 AM    #

31. I’m a high school student who took several smart drugs on the morning of my SAT and aced the Critical Reading section. Could I have done it without them? Maybe, but why bother? I don’t use amphetamines, being skeptical about their side-effect and addition profiles, but the only reason I don’t constantly use enormous amounts of clarifying supplements on a daily basis is the cost. I can only imagine that professionals are using the best and most expensive available. Not only have the substances aided me on tests and cleared up many a case of writer’s block, they have made me more sociable and better at networking. Meet the future- safe, powerful, cognitive enhancement for the daily cost of a cup of coffee.

    — Ben    Dec 26, 01:01 PM    #

32. Re: #30. — No, those aren’t the right questions at all. The question is: “Who the hell do you think you are telling me what I can’t do with myself?”

    — mike18xx    Dec 27, 02:32 AM    #

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