Knafo Shira Venero Csar - Cognitive enhancement : pharmacologic, environmental and genetic factors

Cognitive Enhancement

Pharmacologic, Environmental and Genetic Factors

Editors

Shira Knafo

Unidad de Biofsica CSIC, UPV/EHU, Campus Universidad del Pas Vasco, and IkerBasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Basque Country, Spain

Csar Venero

Psychobiology Department, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Educacin a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain

This book is dedicated to the memory of my dear sister Naama Ruth Yemini (Knafo), who loved life, but passed away in 2014 at 47.

The editors dedicate this book to their families and to patients suffering from cognitive impairment and their families, in the hope that the continued advance of research will soon produce a remedy to their suffering.

Daniel L. Alkon , Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Mathew Blurton-Jones

Department of Neurobiology & Behavior, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

Roi Cohen Kadosh , Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Jonathan E. Draffin , Centro de Biologa Molecular Severo Ochoa, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas/Universidad Autnoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Martin Dresler

Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany

Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Veljko Dubljevi

Neuroethics Research Unit, Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montral (IRCM)

Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montral, QC, Canada

International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities, University of Tbingen, Germany

Jose A. Esteban , Centro de Biologa Molecular Severo Ochoa, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas/Universidad Autnoma de Madrid, Spain

Natalie R.S. Goldberg , Department of Neurobiology & Behavior, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

Inbal Goshen , Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Michael T. Heneka

Department of Neurology, Clinical Neuroscience Unit, Universittsklinikum Bonn, Bonn, Germany

German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease (DZNE), Bonn, Germany

Tsuneya Ikezu , Laboratory of Molecular NeuroTherapeutics, Departments of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics and Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

Shira Knafo , Unidad de Biofsica, CSIC, UPV/EHU, Universidad del Pas Vasco, Ikerbasque, The Basque Foundation for Science, Leioa, Spain

Yong-Seok Lee , Department of Life Science, College of Natural Science, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Chung Yen Looi , Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Yanir Mor , Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Thomas J. Nelson , Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, Morgantown, WV, USA

Ciaran M. Regan , School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland

Dimitris Repantis , Charit Universittsmedizin, Department of Psychiatry, Berlin, Germany

Anat Shapir , Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Miao-Kun Sun , Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, Morgantown, WV, USA

Csar Venero , Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Educacin a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain

Cognitive enhancement is commonly associated with drug use or the use of devices to improve cognition, technologies that have on the whole been established in laboratory animals or through a history of use in humans. In this chapter we aim to clarify the concept underlying cognitive enhancement and to provide a brief overview of the current use of this term in the academic literature, distinguishing the strategies to enhance cognitive function under normal conditions and the therapeutic strategies aimed at overcoming cognitive impairment. In addition, we will briefly review the various approaches to cognitive enhancement later described in this book.