Upcoming event on therapeutic and non-therapeutic uses of non-invasive neuromodulation devices

. Heads-up: The Insti­tute of Med­i­cine (IOM), a branch of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, is putting togeth­er a for­ward-look­ing work­shop on Non-Inva­­sive Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion of the Cen­tral Ner­vous Sys­tem. March 2–3rd, 2015, in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Descrip­tion: Based on advances in biotech­nol­o­gy and neu­ro­science, neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion devices are poised to gain clin­i­cal impor­tance in the com­ing years and to be…

Read More

Monitoring stress-related use of antipsychotic drugs in the military

War on Drugs (OpEd at the NYT): “LAST year, more active-duty sol­diers com­mit­ted sui­cide than died in bat­tle… Worse, accord­ing to data not report­ed on until now, the mil­i­tary evi­dent­ly respond­ed to stress that afflicts sol­diers in Iraq and Afghanistan pri­mar­i­ly by drug­ging sol­diers on the front lines…The trou­ble is that we have no idea whether…

Read More

Neurologists prescribing cognitive enhancement drugs to healthy kids and adults?

Accord­ing to a new posi­tion state­ment by the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy (AAN), pre­scrib­ing cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, “atten­­tion-boost­­ing,” drugs to healthy chil­dren is mis­guid­ed and not jus­ti­fi­able. Inter­est­ing­ly, a 2009 posi­tion state­ment by AAN still in force today stat­ed that doing so with adult “patients” is both legal and eth­i­cal (includ­ing the remark that “Neu­rol­o­gists who pre­scribe medications…

Read More