Scientists back brain drugs for healthy people

Several scientists say healthy people should have the right to boost their brains with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive kids or memory-impaired older folks.

They say college students are already illegally taking prescription stimulants like Ritalin to help them study, and demand for such drugs is likely to grow elsewhere.

Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists say that society should welcome new methods of improving brain function.

They say accomplishing it with pills is no more morally objectionable than eating right or getting a good night's sleep.

The commentary calls for more research and a variety of steps for managing the risks.

Commentary author Martha Farah from the University of Pennsylvania says as more effective brain-boosting pills are developed, demand for them is likely to grow among middle-aged people who want youthful memory powers.

She suggests they will also become popular among multi-tasking workers who need to keep track of multiple demands.

"Almost everybody is going to want to use it," Farah said. "I would be the first in line if safe and effective drugs were developed that trumped caffeine," another author, Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, declared in an e-mail.

The seven authors, from the United States and Britain, include ethics experts and the editor-in-chief of Nature as well as scientists.

They developed their case at a seminar funded by Nature and Rockefeller University in New York. Two authors said they consult for pharmaceutical companies; Farah said she had no such financial ties.

Some health experts agreed that the issue deserves attention.

However, the commentary didn't impress Leigh Turner of the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics.

"It's a nice puff piece for selling medications for people who don't have an illness of any kind," Turner said.

The commentary cites a 2001 survey of about 11,000 American college students that found four per cent had used prescription stimulants illegally in the prior year.

At some colleges, the figure was as high as 25 per cent.

"It's a felony, but it's being done," Farah said.

The stimulants Adderall and Ritalin are prescribed mainly for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but they can help other people focus their attention and handle information in their heads, the commentary says.