Brain steroids: cognitive enhancement drugs and the slippery slope

December 8, 12:51 PMProgressive Politics ExaminerJay McDonough

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OK, imagine these scenarios.  A 100 meter sprint contender is found to have taken human growth hormone during the Olympics.  A cyclist competing in the Tour de France tests positive for EPO following a big mountain stage.  Cheating, right? 

Here's a couple more.  One of three job applicants takes a memory enhancing drug prior to taking the employers exam.  It's found that nearly one half of the students taking a college chemistry final have taken cognitive enhancement drugs. 

Still cheating?  Or merely individuals taking advantage of great leaps in the understanding of brain chemistry and function?

A new commentary in Nature might prompt these more of these kinds of discussions. 

"We call for a presumption that mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs," said the writers, who include Stanford law Professor Henry Greely and neuropsychology Professor Barbara Sahakian at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. "From assembly line workers to surgeons, many different kinds of employee may benefit from enhancement and want access to it, yet they may also need protection from the pressure to enhance."

No new wave of high-efficacy cognitive enhancement drugs has yet emerged for healthy individuals, Greely said. But society needs to prepare itself for the intricate ethical issues that would accompany such advances, he said. Doctors, educators, labor experts, employers and legislators should be thinking about it, he and his co-authors said.  (Link)

The authors argue that throughout human history, man has developed means of enhancing our mental capabilities; through the development of speech, language, writing, printing and the Internet.  In fact, the act of teaching is intended to stimulate brain activity.  The authors assert these new enhancing drugs are just the logical next step in an evolution of cognitive development.

Back to the scenarios at the beginning of the post: The authors reject the premise the development and use of these drugs are analogous to the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport. 

Greely said the moral repugnance that is often focused on steroid use in sports should not be grafted onto cognitive enhancement drugs. "Better-working brains produce things of more lasting value than longer home runs," he said.

Mr. Greely, perhaps understandably, is a bit parochial about his own field of research.  But, as much as Mr. Greeley might like to believe otherwise, the issues are similiar.

Whether taking performance or cognitive enhancing drugs, the result is the same; the performance bar gets raised.  And as the bar is raised, the resulting pressure to compete at the new level is increased.  The athlete, or student, or job applicant must make the choice to either take the drug and compete at the same level as others using enhancements, or not and risk an inferior performance.  And, sometimes, the stakes are very high; salary, stature, job security, advancement.

You know the rest.  As more individuals take the drugs, the competitive advantage the drugs provide is lost.  New enhancements need to be developed to raise the bar again.  Yada, yada, yada. 

For some folks the choices are easy.  LIke James Earl Jones in "Field of Dreams", "Build it and they will come".   But the resulting slippery slope will be treacherous indeed.