Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory Challenges

Abstract

Cognitive enhancement takes many and diverse forms. Various methods of cognitive enhancement have implications for the near future. At the same time, these technologies raise a range of ethical issues. For example, they interact with notions of authenticity, the good life, and the role of medicine in our lives. Present and anticipated methods for cognitive enhancement also create challenges for public policy and regulation.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex enhances working memory

“…The most serious adverse event of TMS is the risk of triggering epileptic seizures (Bostrom and Sandberg 2009) which can be less than 1/1000 (Machii, et al 2006) in healthy subjects (Machii et al 2006;Rossi et al 2009;Krishnan et al 2015). In this study, we used previously established safe TMS protocols (10 Hz frequency; 100 % motor threshold intensity; long inter-train interval).…”

Uso racional de medicamentos, farmaceuticalização e usos do metilfenidato

“…Bostrom & Sandberg 34 claim that life in the modern society demands a whole lot more study and intellectual concentration than was expected for the human species in its environment of evolutionary adaptation and therefore it is not surprising that many people struggle to meet school or job market demands with the use of new technologies. The use of these tools for cognitive enhancement can be seen, according to the author, as an extension of the human species capacity to adapt to the environment.…”

Thinking Better about Better Thinking

“…17 And if people really do struggle to meet the demands of the school or the workplace, and do so for the simple reason that they are human and human brains have been shaped more by thousands of centuries as hunters and pastoralists than by a few centuries as scribes, engineers and insurance brokers, then it is perhaps fairly natural to wonder, in the first place, whether humans today really are flourishing as much as they might, and, in the second, whether their flourishing might be increased by giving their brains a helping hand by means of some biomedical intervention. ' Technological self-modification and the use of cognitive enhancement methods ' , Bostrom and Sandberg continue, ' can be seen as an extension of the human species ' ability to adapt to its environment ' .…”

“…Cognitive enhancement is, in the words of Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg, ' the amplification or extension of core capacities of the mind through improvement or augmentation of internal or external information processing systems ' . 1 Their understanding of cognition extends to methods of acquiring information, processing it, remembering it, and putting it to use; as such, ' [i]nterventions to improve cognitive function may be directed at any one of these core faculties ' .…”