NEUROETHICS | Pharmacological Enhancement of Mood and Related Functions

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Pharmacological Enhancement of Mood and Related Functions

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Pharmacological Enhancement of Mood and Related Functions

Peter Kramer's book, "Listening to Prozac," first drew society's attention to the potential of psychopharmacology for enhancing the lives of healthy people. Several of his patients who had stopped taking Prozac asked to go back on. It was not because they were slipping back into depression. They were free of depression; in common parlance they were well. But on the drug they had been "better than well."

Little is known about the effects of SSRIs on normal people. more>>

Cerullo, M.A. (2006). Cosmetic Psychopharmacology and the President's Council on Bioethics. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 49 (4): 515-523.

Charlton, B.G. (2005). Diazepam with your dinner, Sir? The lifestyle drug-substitution strategy: a radical alcohol policy. Quarterly Journal of Medicine, 98: 457-459.

DeGrazia, D. (2005). Enhancement Technologies and Human Identity. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 30(3): 261-283.

Elliot, C. & Chambers, T. (Editors) (2004). Prozac As a Way of Life. University of North Carolina Press.

Farah, M.J. and Wolpe, P.R. (2004). Monitoring and manipulating brain function: New neuroscience technologies and their ethical implications. Hastings Center Report, 34 (3): 35-45.

Flower, R. (2004). Lifestyle drugs: pharmacology and the social agenda. Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, 25: 182-185.

Foster, R.G. & Wulff, K. (2005). The rhythm of rest and excess. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6: 407-414.

*Furlan P.M., Kallan M.J., Have T.T., Lucki I, and Katz I. (2004). SSRIs do not cause affective blunting in healthy elderly volunteers. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 12 (3): 323-30.

Fukuyama, F. (2002). Our Posthuman Future. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

Hall, W. (2004). Feeling ‘better than well’ EMBO Reports, 5: 1105-1109.

Kass, L. 2003. Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness. Harper Collins.

*Knutson, B., Wolkowitz, O.M., Cole, S.W., Chan, T., Moore, E.A., Johnson, R.C., Terpstra, J., Turner, R.A., and Reus, V.M. (1998). Selective alteration of personality and social behavior by serotonergic intervention. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155: 373-379.

Kramer, P. D. (1993). Listening to Prozac. Penguin Books.

Moreno, J.D. (2006). Juicing the brain. Scientific American, November 29.

Nutt, D.J. (2006). Alcohol alternatives – a goal of psychopharmacology. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 20 (3): 318-320.

Parens, E. (Ed.) (2000). Enhancing Human Traits: Social and Ethical Implications. Georgetown University Press.

Rose, N. (2003). Neurochemical selves. Society, November/December: 46-59.

*Teitelman E. (2001). Off-label uses of modafinil. American Journal of Psychiatry, 158: 1341.

Tse, W.S. & Bond, A.J. (2002). Serotonergic intervention affects both social dominance and affiliative behaviour. Psychopharmacology, 161: 324-330.

Wangsness M. (2000). Pharmacological treatment of obesity. Past, present, and future. Minnesota Medicine, 83:21-6.

Vastag B. (2004). Poised to challenge need for sleep, "wakefulness enhancer" rouses concerns. Journal of the American Medical Association, 291: 167-70.

Wai, S.T. & Bond, A.J. (2002). Serotonergic intervention affects both social dominance and affiliative behavior. Psychopharmacology, 161: 324-330.

Wolpe, P.R. 2003. Treatment, enhancement, and the ethics of neurotherapeutics. Brain and Cognition, 50: 387-395.