Brainpower drugs coming for sports

Susan Polgar will never be mistaken for Jose Canseco. For one thing, she’s a mother of two; but more to the point, she’s far too smart. A four-time women’s world champion in chess, Miss Polgar lifts kings and queens, not dumbbells and subpoenas.

So imagine Mrs. Polgar’s surprise when officials asked for a urine sample after her four-medal performance at last year’s Chess Olympiad in Calvia, Spain.

“I can’t say it was a pleasant experience,” said Mrs. Polgar, 35, a chess grandmaster from Forest Hills, New York. “I have no idea what they were really testing for.”

Try this: anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and a host of other banned substances. Two years ago, the International Chess Federation adopted the World Anti-Doping Agency’s universal drug code, subjecting chess players to the same standards as Olympic sprinters.

Never mind that Mrs. Polgar needs a syringe of THG about as much as track star Marion Jones needs a better Sicilian defense.

“Even if a drug makes you bigger and stronger, it won’t help you think better,” Mrs. Polgar said. “You need logic, planning, concentration. To my knowledge, there is no drug that would help us play better chess.”

In the near future, that may not be the case. While muscle-building drugs spawn home runs and congressional hearings, a coming era of cognitive enhancement promises boosted brains to rival baseball’s bulging biceps.

Picture a golfer who never gets nervous, a basketball player learning to shoot perfect free throws with the help of a pill.

Can’t quite conceive it? Don’t worry — there may be a pill for that, too.

“The idea of [cognitive enhancement] is starting to take hold on a larger and larger scale,” said Dr. Vernon Williams, a sports neurologist and pain-management specialist at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic in Los Angeles. “Lots of people are still kind of unaware. But that’s only temporary.

“Before long, this will be something that is potentially as much an issue in sports as steroids.”

‘Doogie’ mice

The year is 1999. Princeton University scientists are studying two groups of mice: one normal, the other given extra copies of NR2B, a gene linked to memory and learning.

Both types of mice are dropped into a pool of water. The modified mice find a hidden escape ramp twice as quickly as their normal counterparts. In other tests, the NR2B mice show improved memory.

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