Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Brain Doping?

At first I thought Regulating the "Crack" of the Science World was an April Fools joke. "Apparently, in order to be considered for funding this year, PIs have to submit a signed affidavit stating that they will refrain from using brain-enhancing drugs, such as Provigil, in the course of their research."

Could there really be a World Anti-Brain Doping Authority with the acronym WABDA?

Then I found this article from the New York TImes, dated a very unfoolish March 9. Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right? "In a recent commentary in the journal Nature, two Cambridge University researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness, to improve their academic performance. The former is approved to treat attention deficit disorder, the latter narcolepsy, and both are considered more effective, and more widely available, than the drugs circulating in dorms a generation ago."

Do we need the NIH to say you don't get funding if you take brain enhancing drugs? Will employers start requiring them? Evidently I might need Adderall to figure this out.

2 comments:

Anna said...

Umm, yea, that was kind of a web-wide blogger conspiracy. It worked too! UCSD received a bunch of calls from members of the press inquiring after the new NIH regulations. Ha. It totally worked :) There is no WABDA. Not yet, anyway.

Howard said...

The web site's not bad for a new organization, but I should have realized new orgs don't have offices in Montreal, Cape Town, Tokyo, Lausanne, and Montevideo.