Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 9 April 2008 | Nature 452, 674-675 (2008) | doi:10.1038/452674a
News
Poll results: look who's doping
In January, Nature launched an informal survey into readers' use of cognition-enhancing drugs. Brendan Maher has waded through the results and found large-scale use and a mix of attitudes towards the drugs.
The US National Institutes of Health is to crack down on scientists 'brain doping' with performance-enhancing drugs such as Provigil and Ritalin, a press release declared last week. The release, brainchild of evolutionary biologist Jonathan Eisen of the University of California, Davis, turned out to be an April Fools' prank.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
I confess I am still a bit stunned by how many scientists say they are actively doing some type of "brain doping." When I planned this April 1 joke I thought it would be funny in the absurd sense of funny. not funny in the sense of "that is really close to home" funny. Oh well. I guess it was still funny. For more on our April 1 joke see my blog spot http://phylogenomics.blogspot.com/2008/04/confessions-of-april-fool-and-dope-on.html
Years ago when I figured out my "menu" of vitamin & mineral supplements, I decided to take 1000 IU of Vitamin E daily. After some time I noticed that I had an increased ability to concentrate on a complex mental task for a long time. Since I hadn't read about this effect in the popular literature (e.g. Adelle Davis' books), I concluded that it was real, not wishful thinking.
Will it not be proper to restrict the use of drugs for non-medical purpose beyond reproductive age, given the possibility of drug-induced transgenerational epigenetic changes that may potentially affect health of future generations? Will it be ethical to completely disregard this possibility when evidence already exist to warrant consideration of the same?
What is the problem with highly educated adults making a decision to suffer mild side effects in exchange for a measurable performance boost? Why do people feel compelled to regulate everything? Perhaps lawyers need more work?
Certainly marijuana is among the most widely used mentation enhancing drugs . A lot of great programming , writing , and mathematics owe their genesis to its assist . Substances outlawed over the last century generally owe their prohibition as much to their efficacy as their risk . These criminalizations of individuals for what they consume rather than specific actions injurious their fellow citizens is one of the greatest immoralities of our age . Hopefully some countries may recognize the benefit to their resident's welfare a libertarian political philosophy on this and other issues would produce .
Temporarily leaving aside the merits or otherwise of cognition-enhancing drugs, I find it interesting that one of the proponents of their use, as noted in in “Declaration of competing financial interests� : “consults for several pharmaceutical companies and for Cambridge Cognition. and “also has shares in CeNeS.� Dominique Goossens
I agree with Armstrong. In fact, I believe much of the ongoing talk about this subject is probably happening under the influence. I thought these drugs were actual "cognitive enhancers", enlarging our memory, but more then that, helping to focus on multiple things. But now it seems to me it's just the opposite, it restrains your ability to focus on multiple things!... I would never take such a pill. This is not a cognitive enhancer, it's a cognitive leash.
coffee anyone ? remember who sponsored those studies, hoping it would work like the chocholate studies?
Having tried ritalin myself, along with many other stimulants - legal and illegal - beginning with caffeine,ephedrine,yohimbine,modafinal(prescription needed but easily obtainable from internet pharmacies) and on to more amphetamine like or cocaine like compounds, The emphasis on ritalin in this study just sounds WRONG - it is just a poor drug when one has choice of the others. Mention of Ritalin may have been influenced by financial interests as mentioned by Goossens. It's also a very SHALLOW article exhibiting very poor knowledge about different types of stimulants. I'm reminded of a study on marijuana use where the researchers sounded as if they had never tried using it themselves. First there is definitely a need for pure stimulation, to just amplify the amount of raw energy, especially as one grows older. Once has sufficient energy, via use of caffeine, ephedrine, modafinal and stronger drugs, one can move on to "cognitive enhancement". The down side of the straight stimulants is that there is no free lunch, one is robbing Peter to pay Paul and after a period of higher energy there is an inevitable let down and one must rest and recharge. There is also the temptation to just linger and enjoy the energy rush which can become a drug habit in itself! "Cognitive Enhancement" is much trickier - there is no sure thing. Mild marijuana use can open up one's thinking and make it enjoyable but can also lead to one getting completely diverted. The so-called nootropics such as Piracetam have been of help for some but not for others. Piracetam is the most popular, with zero side effects. But it had zero effect on me. Aniracetam is stronger and Pramiracetam even more so, I need to try those in a more systematic way than I have so far. Just plain excercising is good for improving menatal functioning. Mainly, I think, becasue of sutained deep breathing and improved blood flow in the body and head. I've recently discovered a simple and quick cognitive enhancer - with towel draped around one's shoulder and neck, turn the shower on at a reasonably high temperature, stick one's head into the shower stall and let it stay for at least 3-4 minutes. Blood flow to the brain, neck and face is sharply increased and there is an instant mental boost.
I applaud Nature for publishing its findings and am not surprised by the results. The study highlights that doping is not limited to professional athletes and cheating exists in every arena of society. Doping is rampant in our schools and is being hidden under the gauze of ADD/ADHD. Children are put at risk of death or mental breakdown each day just to meet the academic aspirations of their parents or guardians. Healthy adults can make the choice of rolling the dice when it comes to side effects of the referenced cognition-enhancing drugs, but children have no say. Your article is only the tip of the iceberg. Not nearly enough is being done to protect our children. Please read my blog at http://silent-epidemic.blogspot.com/ if you want to know how children are suffering in silence and paying the price.
I wonder -- can some drugs can be used to qualitatively determine a kind of mental "baseline" of happiness? While a good number of people have reported the drugs mentioned in this report are "enhancers", others may report they feel poorer performance under some of these drugs. There may be differences in brain chemistry, but one's mental environment also has a hand in happiness. In college I once got high on marijuana. I couldn't wait for it to wear off because it dampened happiness instead of adding to it. It wasn't a loss of control, it just felt like a cheap imitation of the normal happiness. Analogous to making oneself dizzy -- some people really enjoy the sensation, others may find less pleasure than in their normal state. Perhaps one measure of real progress in the science and technology of human development could be decreased spontaneous drug use in society. (For me personally, that would be TM, spending more time with my wife and children, and making discoveries in my work.) Those who find the effects of drugs very enjoyable -- it must be so tempting to use them again and again. I encourage you to try many different ways to improve your baseline of natural happiness, and I cheer you if you've found healthier alternatives than drugs. You've got a good brain or probably you wouldn't be here -- why mess with one of your good features, even if there is also bad?
I think Mr. Thomas Victor is on to something with his "stick your head under some hot water" comment! I often have a big cup of hot tea when I need to stay alert, it loosens my vocal cords and really helps me concentrate. The effect is the same with decaf and its easier on the stomach than coffee. This is somewhat strange given that test scores are often lower when the test takers are exposed to high levels of heat vs. the cold; must be a localized effect..
Let me bring up this hypothesis: Civilisation grew up intoxicated. Once towns arose, there were always risks of water contamination by agents causing disease to which local population was not immune. Alcoholic beverages coming from controlled water sources (beer) or de-facto distilled or deionised water (wine) were the prime way of prevention. Drinking parties also eased the tension among individuals in non-naturally large groups and/or the next day "secondary effects" decreased the ambition to natural fights for leadership in the group. It is nowadays not distinguishable whether civilisations needed spirits (and other accepted drugs) or whether it was the discovery of spirit containig drinks which enabled the civilisation. New civilisation with endlessly growing group sizes needs other drugs. I see many clever students (and I was not much different and my son is not either) who in everyday life of the research group perform much better than at exam, test or public lecture. Such tests were absent, or at least less critical, in smaller groups with regular personal communication. We should not be surprised if large towns will be running on regular uptake of new widely accepted drugs.
It should be acknowledged that many of us are required to be masters of two very disparate skill sets that are inherently paradoxical: “thinker�, and “administrator�. Science requires imagination- a capacity to generate and run model worlds in one’s head, where possible scenarios are played out and likely outcomes are evaluated. To keep these internal worlds running, we need the capacity to voraciously inhale information, and we also have to be willing to just “drop things� or ignore daily concerns that are trivial relative to the ideas we are incubating. Perhaps this is part of the origin for the caricature of the “scatterbrained� or “absent minded� scientist. We just have things that are more important to think about than the daily concerns that so preoccupy others. To use (admittedly very glibly) the current vocabulary, if these people were children they’d probably be described “more ADHD-like, and “more tending to autism�. And although these terms are probably over used and may be incorrect, I do remember Barry Sharpless publicly announcing after he received his Nobel Prize that he had ADHD. I was grateful to him for saying it. I suspect many others who tend to rapidly flit between the inner and outer worlds were also grateful. In stark contrast is the world of the administrator. Most successful scientists find themselves increasingly in this role as they grow older. The administrator is not engaged in quests. The administrator is engaged in tasks. Tasks with no unforeseen outcome, and no possibly of discovery. In other words, things that are really really boring. Worse, these tasks always have deadlines. And worse still, other people get mad at you if you try to just drop them. Many of us are lucky enough to be blessed with some degree of ability and comfort in either role. People who excel in both roles often become superstars. But science tends to attract born thinkers more than born administrators. I suspect many of those taking these “cognitive enhancers� are doing so not to enhance their ability as scientists, but to help cope with the utter boredom associated with life as an administrator. So I don’t find the results of the survey surprising. If there were any group you predict would be drawn to drugs such as Ritalin, you’d expect it to be academic scientists trying to straddle the worlds of the thinker and administrator.
Since when Nature journal allows article commenting? This is great news, one step towards Science 2.0. However, I didn't find a possibility to comment some other articles published in Nature... And there already exists a journal-independent site for unbiased scientific discussions and article comments is http://www.citationimpact.org
I gained an enormous increase in energy and concentration in giving up something rather than taking something else, in my case wheat, which I have obviously been or become allergic to. Maybe some of these 'enhancers' are counteracting things that can be countered in other ways, particularly things which have an increased effect with age, which I believe is the case in my situation
The following reference in the PLoS ONE 4(6): e5763 paper (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005763) entitled "Detection of Transgenerational Spermatogenic Inheritance of Adult Male Acquired CNS Gene Expression Characteristics Using a Drosophila Systems Model" is of present interest: 'The experimental evidence presented here warrants systematic investigations to examine if epigenetic inheritance of environmentally induced characteristics exists in man. A topical example to underscore the necessity of such efforts is the ongoing debate whether the use of cognitive enhancement drugs by normal healthy individuals is ethical [40]. Evidence supporting transgenerational inheritance of effects produced by these drugs would compel the present argumentation in a radically new direction.'