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Blessing or Curse? Neurocognitive Enhancement by “Brain Engineering”

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Medicine Studies

Abstract

Purpose

Since the 1980s we have witnessed a soaring “extra-therapeutic” use of psycho-pharmacology. But there is also an increasing interest in invasive methods of neuroenhancement that can be subsumed under the term “brain engineering”. The present article aims to identify key issues raised by those forms of neuro-technical enhancement (e.g., deep brain stimulation, brain-computer interfaces, memory chips, neurobionic interventions). First it distinguishes different forms of neuroenhancement, then describes features of those methods and finally discusses their ethical implications.

Methods

The article is based on an in-depth literature study and an ethical assessment of the current and emerging forms of neuroenhancement.

Results

From a medical and normative perspective, psycho-pharmacological enhancement and nonpharmacological enhancement by brain engineering demonstrate considerable differences. Many arguments in favour of nonpharmacological enhancement fall short, for they fail to sufficiently consider the medical, anthropological and socio-cultural context. In many respects unsecured use is confronted with considerable risks.

Conclusions

Research on invasive forms of neuroenhancement partly takes place in the fields of (nano-)technology and military, to which health care experts and medical ethicists do not have easy access. This raises the danger of misjudging trends and developmental tendencies. Thus medicine and medical ethics must a priori thematize the goals and risks linked to these questions as well as participate discursively right from the beginning.

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Notes

  1. In contrast to some of the measures described in this chapter, TMS has already been clinically proven. Yet most feared is the rare onset of an epileptic fit when repeatedly subjected to TMS. For that reason strict usage regulations were developed in 1998.

  2. It has been noted that computational ability represents not information, but an ability, as the term indicates. It precedes a learning process independent of whether a “calculator” will be integrated into the brain or, for example, one uses a pocket calculator.

  3. For details on the term „human mesocosmos“ see Engels/Hildt (2005), passim, as well as Hildt (2005), pp. 230–236. The term explicitly refers to the field of human sensory perception. He describes the unity of physical reality which humans are able to experience and process exclusively via our sensory organs. Thus UV and infrared rays and sound waves outside the 16-20,000 Hz range, for example, are ruled out.

  4. Counterexamples include taking an attention and memory enhancing substance for a test or in professional stress situations or suppression of the needs to sleep in wartime.

  5. Degrazia, however, consciously does not refer to Prozac in this case as an anti-depressant, but as an enhancer while he uses the term “cosmetic psychopharmacology”; ibid. (2000), p. 37.

  6. Glannon (2006), p. 51 (“If one’s psychological connectedness and continuity were disrupted by these changes, then it is unclear who would have benefited from the drug intervention.”).

  7. Wagner (2003), p. N1 (“With increasing regularity healthy people are reaching for such remedies. At work and in public life they want to appear as a radiant hero and dazzle their fellow men with their intellectual brilliance. The latter stand there like poor ghosts.”).

  8. Degrazia (2000), p. 38, speaks in this context of “troubling cultural values”.

  9. Some authors fear that social descent will be aggravated rather than moderated by enhancement. See Glannon (2006), p. 51: “Any beneficial options of enhancement would probably come on top of existing social inequality and would more likely exacerbate than ameliorate it.”.

  10. This view has been given voice by the sociologist and ethicist Paul R. Wolpe at the University of Pennsylvania. Cited after Kaulen (2003), p. N1.

  11. See also Foster’s reference whereupon the events of 9/11 in the USA as well as abroad caused a notable weakening of civic liberties in the USA in its wake. Foster (2006), p. 197 (“Will there be a ‘reduced barrier against human experiments’ for developing new neuroscience technologies for military or security uses?”).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for History, Theory and Ethics of Medicine Universitätsklinikum Aachen, Aachen, Germany

    Dominik Groß

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  1. Dominik Groß
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Groß, D. Blessing or Curse? Neurocognitive Enhancement by “Brain Engineering”. Medicine Studies 1, 379–391 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12376-009-0032-6

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