Brain doping soon acceptable?

Brain doping soon acceptable? Professor Klaus Lieb, brain researcher and director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University Medical Center Mainz, together with the physician Andreas Franke interviewed about 1,500 pupils and students after personal experiences with psychoactive substances to increase the performance or the basic willingness to „brain doping“.

Professor Klaus Lieb, brain researcher and director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University Medical Center Mainz, together with the physician Andreas Franke interviewed about 1,500 pupils and students after personal experiences with psychoactive substances to increase the performance or the basic willingness to „brain doping“.

In an interview with the FR-online Lieb reports that although only four percent of respondents have their own experience in this regard, but 80 percent openly signaled their willingness to resort to drugs to increase the ability to concentrate, alertness and memory.

Just two weeks ago, researchers from the Ernest Gallo Center at the University of California, San Francisco, reported research that Ritalin might use as a tool to treat „cognitive performance enhancement“ not only in attention and concentration disorders (AD / H / S) make interesting. In experiments on rats, methylphenidate increased the activity of certain dopamine receptors in the brain. As a result, they learned so „doped“ Rats better and faster than the saline-treated control group. In addition to the methylphenidates are also preparations from the groups of amphetamines and anti-dementia, which are used to treat Alzheimer's in question.

The great readiness, so Lieb, is to interpret the increasing pressure from the outside, while the actual use is kept low by the fact that the said drugs are subject to the prescription or the Narcotics Act. Freely available awakens like the drink „Red Bull“ Just like caffeine tablets, juveniles have long been used for stimulating.

The scientist rejects a freer use of performance-enhancing substances. On the one hand he warns of unforeseeable long-term effects of the drugs, on the other hand, liberalization could put pressure on those who are actually on the „doping“ want to give up.

Alternatively, there are numerous concepts from psychology, education and naturopathy, with which the brain work can be optimized and the overall performance can be increased. These include, for example, a beneficial diet, mental training, NLP, (self-) hypnosis and structured learning based on behavioral psychology. (Dipl.Päd. Jeanette Viñals Stein, non-medical practitioner, 24.03.2010)

Further reading:
Klaus love:
„Brain Doping: Why We Should not Swallow Everything.“
Artemis & Winkler, Mannheim 2010.

Further articles:
Food for´s brain: high performance through nutrition
Ritalin for good grades