This week’s New Yorker has a fascinating article about the growing use of “neuro-enhancing” drugs by college students and others to improve focus, reduce sleep needs and lengthen study time and work hours.

Drugs like Adderall and Ritalin, typically prescribed to improve focus of people with attention deficit problems, now are being taken by people with healthy brains to help them boost achievement. One doctor has even coined a term for the practice: cosmetic neurology. Author Margaret Talbot writes:

A young man I’ll call Alex recently graduated from Harvard. As a history major, Alex wrote about a dozen papers a semester. He also ran a student organization, for which he often worked more than forty hours a week; when he wasn’t on the job, he had classes. Weeknights were devoted to all the schoolwork that he couldn’t finish during the day, and weekend nights were spent drinking with friends and going to dance parties. …Since, in essence, this life was impossible, Alex began taking Adderall to make it possible. Adderall, a stimulant composed of mixed amphetamine salts, is commonly prescribed for children and adults who have been given a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. But in recent years Adderall and Ritalin, another stimulant, have been adopted as cognitive enhancers: drugs that high-functioning, overcommitted people take to become higher-functioning and more overcommitted…. College campuses have become laboratories for experimentation with neuroenhancement.

To learn more, read the full article, “Brain Gain: The Underground World of Neuroenhancing Drugs.”