Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, December 8, 2008

(12-07) 19:25 PST — Three job candidates sit in a quiet room, straining over a tough exam. But one of them has taken a memory-enhancing drug the other two couldn’t afford. Is the test fair?

Henry Greely, a Stanford law professor, rejects compariso…Henry Greely, a Stanford law professor, says society shou… View Larger Images
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In another futuristic scenario, a drug can help airline pilots keep focused during a long flight, though it causes some side effects. May an airline require pilots to take the drug?

Get ready to confront such questions in daily life, a group of scientists and policy experts urge in a thought-provoking commentary published online Sunday by the journal Nature.

Brain research is accelerating, and a new era of “cognitive enhancement” – the use of brain-stimulating drugs and devices by healthy people – is approaching, the authors said.

While thorny ethical and medical questions must be addressed, pharmaceutical enhancement of inborn mental gifts is a trend to be welcomed, the seven co-authors from Harvard, Stanford and other prestigious institutions said.

“We call for a presumption that mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs,” said the writers, who include Stanford law Professor Henry Greely and neuropsychology Professor Barbara Sahakian at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. “From assembly line workers to surgeons, many different kinds of employee may benefit from enhancement and want access to it, yet they may also need protection from the pressure to enhance.”