Personal enhancement isn’t new (think hard work and caffeine), but our ability to directly improve performance using drugs and devices is rapidly improving. In turn, this raises concerns about fairness, justice, safety and regulation.

Some enterprising individuals are making DIY stimulation devices to boost their performance in video gaming. Companies like Foc.us and Thync are manufacturing and selling commercial stimulation devices.

Should the FDA regulate the sale of these devices? Should use of brain stimulation to enhance performance in gaming and recreation be prohibited, discouraged, encouraged, or required? Should a physician’s prescription be required?

Join us for a panel discussion on the science, ethics, and regulation of do-it-yourself brain stimulation and other forms of cognitive enhancement.

This event was free and open to the public.

Panelists

• Aaron Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law
• Julian Savulescu, PhD, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, Director of The Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Director of The Institute for Science and Ethics, The Oxford Martin School
• Anna Wexler, PhD Candidate, MIT Department of Science, Technology and Society

Neuroethics Seminar Series

This event is part of a series hosted by the Center for Biothics at Harvard Medical School.

Co-sponsors

• The International Neuroethics Society
• The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School
• Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior, MGH
• Institute for the Neurosciences, BWH
• Center for Brain Science, Harvard University
• Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

With funding from

• Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, Harvard University
• The Harvard Brain Initiative Collaborative Seed Grant Program