Talk on performance-enhancing pills at LEARNTEC 2026 in Karlsruhe

On 5 May 2026, I gave a talk on “Performance-Enhancing Pills – Prevalence, Causes, and Consequences” (in German: “Leistungssteigernde Pillen – Verbreitung, Ursachen und Folgen”) at LEARNTEC in Karlsruhe, at the invitation of Prof. Dr. Peter Henning.

Cognitive enhancement means deliberately boosting one's mental performance without medical need, for example with caffeine tablets or prescription drugs such as methylphenidate, but also with technologies such as brain stimulation or brain-computer interfaces. At a time of rising performance demands, digital acceleration, and pressure to optimize oneself, for instance through social media, this raises questions about health protection, fairness, personal freedom, and possible regulation.

In the talk, I presented findings from the ENHANCE project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the most comprehensive project on this topic in Germany to date, in which more than 25,000 people were surveyed. I discussed how widespread different forms of cognitive enhancement are, possible causes such as job stress, personality traits, and moral attitudes, and social consequences, for example how teamwork changes when a team member uses performance-enhancing substances. I also presented results from studies on why some parents give their children substances to enhance performance or consider doing so.

I would like to thank Peter Henning for the invitation and the audience for the discussion.