Summary Of The Article 'Brain Gain'

In the article “Brain Gain: The Underground World of “Neuroenhancing” Drugs” (Yorker 2009) Margaret Talbot discusses the misuse of prescription drugs that enhance academic performance at the college level. First Talbot introduces readers to a young college history major at Harvard University named Alex who receives a description of a demanding, busy life which seems impossible to control without the safety unapproved adopted use of a drug named Adderall. After that Alex’s dependency on the prescription drugs cognitive enhancers is described when he asks his doctor to increase the amount of intake and the listing of his daily routine on using Adderall during a week that required him to write four term papers. Next Talbot describes a personal

meeting with Alex that details his belief that students who use the prescription drugs are people that are only looking to do better with their grades. Furthermore to back up Alex’s belief she provides scientific research discovered in 2005 from a Michigan University team lead by Sean Esteban McCabe that reported increasing rates of prescription drug misuse of around 4.1 percent of American undergraduates throughout the year of 2004. Also adding to the research McCabe’s team found the prescription drug Adderall has multiple negative side effects on the user’s body and that the social impact of the drug has influenced both competitive and normal college students to seek out the drugs benefits knowing the drawbacks from it.

However, unlike Alex who uses the prescription drug privately Nicholas Seltzer uses the prescription drugs as an outlook for a bigger goal in life that can efficiently improve the world. Seltzer describes his personal belief in using the cognitive enhancer drug named piracetam as a means to keep his aging mind healthy and because as a “trans humanist” his ideals derive from the want of living a long time and using the positives that come from cognitive enhancers. Afterwards Talbot meets Seltzer and finds out that he was not only in favor of the cognitive enhancer, but also the feeling of manipulating the mind and that he feels every right do so as it was done before in history by people like Sir Francis Bacon. In addition to his argument Seltzer continued to explain that the smart drugs were in the legal acceptance as it does not harm any other person beyond the user and that the suppression on intellectual advancement would hinder America’s international

competitiveness. In a similar fashion like Alex’s story, Seltzer received Adderall easily through a doctor and used prescription drugs when writing a paper, or completing day to day tasks and discovered the cognitive enhancers through online research. Then when asked about the personal feeling and lack of research on piracetam Seltzer believed that the drug was fine since it personally worked and that if the drug was to be banned then it would be of no use as many scholarly individuals are currently in use of it. In brief, Seltzer believes that neuroenhancers are acceptable productive enhancers in the current economic competitive and technological distractive world. Then Talbot speaks again to the Harvard graduate Alex who has controlled his intake of the drug and has used the drug to stay focused at work as his employers would want. Talbot shows that the use of neuroenhancers increases as the world becomes more educationally and technologically advanced and as the workforce becomes more competitive that the belief of using such drugs changes as the demand for it is needed.