Need to lose weight, win friends and influence people? There’s a pill for that.
Or at least there will be one in the not-so-distant future, says a new pop-neuroscience book, “The Compass of Pleasure,” which discusses the future of psychopharmaceuticals — drugs that can, by adjusting brain chemistry, safely help adjust behaviors believed to be hardwired or a function of poor willpower.
Although there are plenty of chemicals that can help control behavior, the mystery that scientists struggle with is how to create a conduct-controlling drug that is both effective and harmless. This discovery is the pharmaceutical world’s holy grail, says author and Johns Hopkins University neuroscience professor David Linden.
What scientists hope to do is to manipulate the brain’s natural pleasure centers and make destructive but pleasurable activities — such as excessive eating, alcohol consumption and drug use — and blunt or suppress the neural kick you get from engaging in the activity.
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