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In science fiction, we love the premise of enhanced brainpower. Wouldn’t you like to be Lucy, the main character in a recently released movie, who overdoses on a synthesized drug and ends up stimulating access to over 90% of her brain capacity to become a superhuman?  Or how about Gabriel Vaughn in the TV series, Intelligence, an operative with a super-computer microchip in his brain and the first human directly connected to a globalized information grid.

We’ve been tinkering with the brain for centuries. Ever since cave dwellers discovered certain plants instilled feelings of euphoria, mankind has been on a quest to unlock the mysteries of our human processor, find ways to upgrade its abilities, repair and improve upon original sensory input devices.  A recent article on the future of “wired” brains had me wondering if we were pushing a concept destined to backfire on us.

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