NEUROBIOLOGY OF INTELLIGENCE: SCIENCE AND ETHICS

Preface
Human mental abilities, such as intelligence, are complex and profoundly important, both in a practical sense and for what they imply about the human condition. Understanding these abilities in mechanistic terms has the potential to facilitate their enhancement. There is strong evidence that the lateral prefrontal cortex, and possibly other areas, support intelligent behaviour. Variations in intelligence and brain structure are heritable, but are also influenced by factors such as education, family environment and environmental hazards. Cognitive, psychometric, genetic and neuroimaging studies are converging, and the emergence of mechanistic models of intelligence is inevitable. These exciting scientific advances encourage renewed responsiveness to the social and ethical implications of conducting such research.

Summary

Intelligence research is more advanced and less controversial than is generally realized. Definitive conclusions about the neural and genetic bases of intelligence are being drawn — these have ethical implications that need to be addressed.
General intelligence and volume of frontal grey matter (assessed by magnetic resonance imaging) are correlated.
The lateral prefrontal cortex is consistently activated during intelligence testing. Frontal and parietal brain regions implicated in working memory are also activated under test conditions. These data contribute to the debate on whether intelligence has a unitary (activation of a single brain region/functional unit) or multiple basis.
The structure of brain regions that influence intelligence is under strong genetic control. Studies of intelligence using twins reared separately support the heritability of cognitive function.
Environmental factors — such as prenatal exposure to toxins, duration of breastfeeding and shared family environment — affect intellectual function. These non-genetic factors have a much greater effect on childhood intelligence in impoverished families.
Establishing a neurobiological basis for intelligence has important ethical implications. For example, is it ethical to assess racial differences in intelligence? Such questions need to be proactively addressed so that the field of intelligence research is not perceived as socially divisive.

So does Unknown have any position or recommendation on intelligence research?

I would like to know the ethical implications of taking these cognitive enhancers?

It seems to me that if something is an "enhancer," then by definition it renders an advantage, and also by definition, advantages are selected for, not against. Therefore, people who enhance their cognition or perception artificially will have an advantage. This all assumes that there exist actual enhancing substances.

Professional chess tournaments don't screen for drugs because there is no recognized enhancer for that particular mental competition. That doesn't mean that a chess play enhancer doesn't exist, just that there isn't an officially recognized one, and they've been looking for over a hundred years. Coffee and cigars come about as close to chess play ehnancers as anyone can see, yet there have been chess champions who don't consume either one.