According to BBC Online (8 July), “A drug developed to help ward off the progress of dementia could increase the mental power of people without the illness.” The story was reporting the results of a study carried out by Jerome Yesavage of Stanford University. He and his colleagues found that airline pilots performed better on a complex flight-simulator test after taking Aricept for a month than after taking a placebo.

Aricept is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor that is used to delay the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The results of the study indicate that it might also be a potential 'smart drug' — one that could increase memory or cognitive performance in people without Alzheimer's or other diseases.

Such a suggestion is highly controversial. The idea that students might take it during their degree courses, or that parents could use it to improve their childrens' performance on school tests, has led to debates about whether smart drugs are ethical or desirable. It is feared, for example, that the availability of such drugs — at a cost — could widen the gap between rich and poor. But the effects found in the study were small — Yesavage told the New York Times (9 July), “It's not something where people will jump up after a month and say, 'I'm a heck of a lot smarter.'”