Brain Hacking to Boost your A-Game: The Ethics of Cognitive Enhancement in Gaming and Competition
Channel: HMS Center for Bioethics
Date: 2015-10-28

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.

-- Introduction --

Thomas I. Cochrane, MD, MBA
Associate Neurologist and Senior Ethics Consultant, Brigham and Women’s Hospital 
​Assistant Professor of Neurology and Director of Neuroethics, Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School

-- Speakers --

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
Visiting Scholar, The Center for Neuroscience and Society, University of Pennsylvania

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

With funding from
Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, Harvard University
The Harvard Brain Initiative Collaborative Seed Grant Program