Rethinking Cognitive Enhancement

There has been much recent excitement amongst neuroscientists and ethicists about the possibility of using drugs and other technologies to enhance cognition in healthy individuals. This excitement has arisen from recent advances in neuroscientific technologies such as drugs that increase alertness and wakefulness in healthy individuals or technologies that can stimulate activity in different parts of the brain-either via the scalp or via electrodes in the brain, raising the possibility of producing cognitive and affective improvements in otherwise healthy individuals. This book critically explores and analyses the scientific and ethical debates surrounding cognitive enhancers. Including contributions from neuroscientists, neuropsychopharmacologists, ethicists, philosophers, public health professionals, and policy researchers, the book offers a multidisciplinary, critical consideration of the ethics of the use of cognitive enhancers.