For all you brain dopers — read this —

Just a quick one here — Article in the Guardian by Margaret Talbot who also wrote a recent New Yorker article. Some interesting stuff in here on “brain doping”. See Can a daily pill really boost your brain power? | Science | The Observer

Lead in as follows:

In America, university students are taking illegally obtained prescription drugs to make them more intelligent. But would you pop a smart pill to improve your performance? Margaret Talbot investigates the brave new world of neuro enhancement

Would write more, but brain not doped right now —

Author: Jonathan Eisen

I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. (see my lab site here). My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis View all posts by Jonathan Eisen

4 thoughts on “For all you brain dopers — read this —”

DamaraMc says:

September 21, 2009 at 3:10 am

Thanks for posting. This was a really insightful article. A little scary even. I haven't used anything myself (except a lot of coffee), but it seems more and more common.

What I found most interesting is the quote: “They will help people in the lower end of the ability range more than in the higher end”. I always assumed that it was people at the very top who used these drugs.

LikeLike

Reply
industrialblvd says:

September 21, 2009 at 4:54 am

When I was in college, students with still-adolescent taste buds that rejected the bitter taste of coffee took ephedrine to study late into the night. Then ephedrine was pulled off the market, and it seems students ten years later have found prescription alternatives. It's misleading to say this is about increasing brain power or intelligence – it's just increasing productive hours so you can party AND study AND whatever else without falling asleep on your keyboard when you have a paper due the next day. It's their coffee roast of choice.

LikeLike

Reply
CP says:

September 23, 2009 at 12:26 am

This exact article was published in the New Yorker in April. See here.

It's sort of weird that the Guardian doesn't make any mention of this.

LikeLike

Reply
Jonathan Eisen says:

September 23, 2009 at 12:30 am

weird – when I read it it seemed, well different — not sure why — weird — need some drugs to help brain work better

LikeLike

Reply