by Michael Kuhar, PhD

Editor’s Note:
Dr. Kuhar is a Candler Professor at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Senior Faculty Fellow in the Center for Ethics at Emory University.  An expert in addiction, he is one of the most productive and highly cited scientists worldwide.  He has received a number of prestigious awards for his work, and is involved in many aspects of brain/behavioral research and education.

You might be interested in his book: The Addicted Brain. 


Recently, Constance Harrell facilitated an Emory Neuroethics Program Neuroscience and Neuroethics in the News Seminar on sugar and depression. Obesity became a topic and, not surprisingly, out of this discussion arose the question, “Can sugar be addicting?”  This is closely related to the question, “Can food be addicting?”

Somebody might say, we need sugar/food to be healthy, and we can’t do without them, so how can we say they are addicting?  Well, there is an answer to this.  Addiction, by definition, is seeking and taking a substance even though there are negative consequences.  Negative consequences are key. So if we take a substance but there are no negative consequences, addiction wouldn’t be in the discussion.  The question of danger for addiction and abuse might be, but definite addiction probably wouldn’t be (Kuhar 2012).

Consider taking opiates for pain.  Chronic pain patients repeatedly take morphine or similar medicines for a long time.  These patients are “dependent” because if they stop the drug, they go into painful withdrawal. But they are not “addicted” because they don’t compulsively seek out the drug and experience negative consequences.  This would be different from the addict who searches for heroin and in doing so breaks the law, ignores relationships, health, and work, etc.  So you can “need” something but yet not exhibit the key identifier of addiction, which is seeking and taking even though they are destructive.  We can need food, but yet not experience it as destructive, provided it is taken in moderate quantities and provides necessary nutrients. But perhaps some do experience the negative. As with drugs, there are interpersonal variations in how we experience sugar.  An extreme case would be a person with diabetes where taking sugar is more dangerous.

Ethical issues with Lumosity and other Direct-to-Consumer Brain Training Games by Emory Neuroethics Program Director and AJOB Neuroscience Editor-in-Residence, Dr. Karen Rommelfanger and AJOB Neuroscience editorial intern Ryan Purcell.

Article is open access here for the next 50 days until June 11, 2015.



“Internet brain training programs, where consumers serve as both subjects and funders of the research, represent the closest engagement many individuals have with neuroscience. Safeguards are needed to protect participants’ privacy and the evolving scientific enterprise of big data.”

Last month, Emory’s Committee on Academic Integrity and the Barkley Forum collaborated to host “Study Drugs: Exploring the Ethics of Cognitive Enhancement and the University’s Policy.” The program featured a debate among four Emory University undergraduates and a discussion between Emory Center for Ethics's very own Dr. Karen Rommelfanger and Dr. John Banja in addition to Willie Bannister, Emory’s Associate Director of Health Promotion. This event, organized by Emory University senior Grant Schleifer, brought out students from many areas of study to weigh in on how the university can better address the potential issue of increasing usage of cognitive enhancement drugs within Emory’s student body.

In an effort to relay the contents of the event to the greater student body, the speeches from the event are displayed below in the order of their presentation. This 20-minute debate included two affirmative speeches advocating that Emory ought to take a stance on the use of cognitive enhancement drugs and set up a regulatory regime to oversee students’ use of cognitive enhancers.  The negative team argued against this approach to the “study drugs” problem by presenting potential negative consequences to greater monitoring of the intake of cognitive enhancers, such as creating a larger black market for drugs like Adderall.

Further, Dr. Jason Ciejka, Emory’s Associate Director of the Honor Council attended this event and provided us with a wonderful commentary on the proceedings. Given his role at the university, his perspective on issues such as cognitive enhancement is incredibly valuable and aids in further understanding the intersection of ethics and policy at the university level. His commentary along with the content of all the speeches from the event will demonstrate how academics, administrators, and students can collaborate to discuss thorny ethical issues that impact all Emory community members and will hopefully stimulate further discussion on this blog.

Prescription stimulant use is on the rise at college campuses, especially at elite schools where the pressure and demands can be overwhelming. Students have a variety of methods to handle the stresses of their studies, but the consumption of prescription stimulants, such as Adderall or Ritalin, has become more popular among healthy individuals. While this trend raises multiple important ethical issues, the interesting idea that prescription stimulants may be masking authentic versions of ourselves was the topic of the most recent Neuroethics in the News discussion. Facilitated by AJOB Neuroscience editorial intern Ryan Purcell and AJOB Neuroscience Editor John Banja, the discussion centered around a recently published article by Torben Kjaersgaard entitled “Enhancing Motivation by Use of Prescription Stimulants: The Ethics of Motivation Enhancement^."1

A number of botched executions over the past 16 months have reopened national discourse about the relevance of capital punishment in the 21^st century, which has been polarized by passage of a Utah bill reinstating use of the firing squad. As of March 2015, the United States is the lone Western power and one of only 36 nations (18%) worldwide that executes its own citizens. Some common points of contention against state-sponsored execution include, but are certainly not limited to: cases of wrongful execution; distributive injustice, whereby racial minorities are disproportionately executed; diminished mental capacity, which may limit the perpetrator’s moral discernment and decision-making abilities; and insufficient evidence of its deterrent effect on other criminals. On the other hand, death penalty supporters often speak from two conventional perspectives about punishment: (1) a consequentialist perspective – that capital punishment will protect society against that particular convict’s future crimes, and/or (2) a retributivist perspective – namely, an intuitive notion of “an eye for an eye,” that people deserve punishment in proportion to the evilness of their past misdeeds. It’s important to note that retributivists also require proof of criminal intent, known as mens rea. While both sides of the conversation about capital punishment raise defensible points that are worthy of debate, and other perhaps more compassionate approaches to punishment exist, I’ll focus here on the two perspectives most supportive of capital punishment, which neuroscience may have the capacity to inform.

The relevance of both perspectives – consequentialist and retributivist – in this debate is demonstrated in the recent high-profile case of Kelly Gissendaner, the State of Georgia’s only female death-row inmate. Hundreds of faith leaders cite Kelly’s psychological transformation during her time in prison when they insist that the State grant her clemency, which speaks to a consequentialist approach to justice: Kelly is no longer a threat to others, and therefore taking her life, versus lifetime imprisonment, is unwarranted and unjust. By contrast for the pure retributivists, rehabilitation is irrelevant when meting out an individual’s punishment. Such a position was recently articulated by Danny Porter, the District Attorney for Gwinnett Country (GA), who stated that "[Kelly's] sentence is appropriate for the crime that was committed…and really what she's done since is almost not something that needs to be considered." These two perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but public discourse in this case tends to divide opponents and supporters along consequentialist and retributivist lines, respectively. So how can neuroscience, and possibly neurotechnology, speak to these perspectives?