Leatherhead Matters

Is there any difference between drinking coffee to pep yourself up and taking a drug like Modafinil, which has been shown to increase alertness, planning and memory? There could be side effects and if everyone else in your office or class was popping Modafinil then perhaps you’d feel pressure to take it too. Is there anything wrong with that? Is such a scenario inevitable?

Drugs like Ritalin are already used routinely to help children with ADHD, and cholinesterase inhibitors are used to help people with Alzheimer’s disease. Now in an open-access commentary for Nature magazine published today, psychologists Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir of the
MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute in Cambridge, say they are aware many of their healthy colleagues are taking Modafinil to fight jet lag or enhance their productivity. There are also reports of the drug being used by ever greater numbers of healthy university students.

Sahkian and Morein-Zamir are calling on society to start discussing the implications of cognitive enhancers now and Nature is hosting a forum on the topic where experts and readers can discuss the ethical issues raised. In particular Sahkian and Morein-Zamir say regulation needs to catch up with
the science: “Rather than individuals purchasing substances over the internet, we believe it would be better to ensure supervised access to safe and effective cognitive-enhancing drugs, particularly given dangerous drug-drug interactions.”

This latest endeavour comes just weeks after a British Medical Association discussion paper raised many of the same issues, in some cases going further, to discuss the ethics of using transcranial magnetic stimulation, deep brain stimulation and genetic manipulation for the purposes of cognitive enhancement.
Indeed there have been several signs over the last few years of a powerful sense among the scientific and medical community that progress is racing so fast in psychology and the neurosciences that the public urgently needs to be kept up-to-date and intimately involved in the decisions that will surely shape all our futures.

Two years ago, the UK Government’s Foresight programme published a report “Drug Futures 2025″ that claimed “We are on the verge of a revolution in the specificity and function of the psychoactive substances available to us”. We should take action now, the report said, in anticipation of the impact these
advances will have on three key areas: mental health treatment; addiction and recreational drug use; and the use of a new breed of drug called cognitive enhancers. Also, from 2004 through to this year, a European-wide project “Meeting of
Minds” consulted 126 citizens from nine countries, allowing them to discuss the implications of brain science developments with leading experts.

Neuroscientific progress may be moving at shuttle-speed but fortunately it is easier than ever to keep abreast of new developments in psychology and the neurosciences - there’s the Research Digest of course, but for a list of many other psychology/neuro blogs, take a look at the blog roll in the
left-hand column of the Research Digest blog homepage.

Link to Nature commentary on the use of cognitive enhancers:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7173/full/4501157a.html
Link to BMA discussion paper on cognitive enhancements:
http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/CognitiveEnhancement2007
Link to Government Foresight report:
http://www.foresight.gov.uk/Previous_Projects/Brain_Science_Addiction_and_Drugs/Reports_and_Publications/ScienceReviews/Index.html
Link to Meeting of Minds:                         http://www.meetingmindseurope.org/

Gordon Brown is being sued for breach of contract for failing to hold the referendum on Europe that was promised in the Labour Party manifesto of 2005.

However, Gordon Brown’s barrister told the court this week that:

“manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation“          (H/T Trixy)

So, just decoding the legalese, that means we should not believe anything, ever again, that politicians put in their election manifestos. I think we’ve always known this but, now it’s official!

A caller to the BBC Radio 4 show “Gardner’s Question Time” asked for advice on the plant Rhodochiton volubilis, which he said was “commonly known as the BMW or black man’s willy (US readers: pick the British slang meaning!)

Panellists were heard giggling their way through a discussion about the plant. Gardening author Bob Flowerdew admitted he had “only ever seen one close up - and not that colour”.

Horticulturalist Anne Swithinbank added: “I’ve never seen one in my life. They don’t really like the cold, as you can imagine. They shrivel up and look very unhappy.”

Outcome? Lots of complaints to the BBC from offended viewers and a public apology from said BBC ….Oh Dear! Gardners had better stick to their Latin when talking about plants.

What are the warning signs of a gadget addict? John O’Neill, director of addictions services for the Menninger Clinic, identifies these five:

1. You’d rather text than talk face-to-face.
2. You can’t leave home without it. You can’t relax without constantly checking for email or messages; a cell phone ear piece becomes a permanent part of your wardrobe.
3. Your family or friends ask you to stop, but you can’t. The Internet becomes a more powerful draw than spending time with family or friends or other favourite activities.
4. You miss important life moments.
5. You can’t stop even after it gets you in trouble, like being in a car accident while talking on the cell phone.

Based on some people I know perhaps another indicator of whether you’re a gadget addict is if you talk to it more than Tom Hanks talked to Wilson in the movie “Castaway”.

H/T  NYT