Online students beware: a new study conducted by researchers at Universite Laval in Quebec, Canada, indicates that heavy thought might contribute to obesity. The limited study — apparently, there are only 14 obese people in Quebec — suggests that intellectual activity causes increased fluctuations in glucose and insulin levels in your body. Since glucose is the only fuel used by brain cells, the brain may in turn tell the body to replenish the burned glucose by eating more.

In the study, the subjects were given food after three separate activities: relaxing in a chair, writing a 350-word summary of a document and engaging in a comprehensive battery of tests on a computer. Compared to the feeding time after the relaxation period, the subjects ate an average of 203 more calories after writing the summary and 253 more calories after taking the computerized tests. As icing on the fattening cake, they burned only THREE more calories during the “brainy” events than they did while relaxing, resulting in a net 200 and 250 caloric increase after the intellectual activities.

Online students, of course, get the double whammy of not only craving more food due to increased brain function, but also experiencing the decreased physical activity of spending all their time in front of a computer. Linked with other studies that suggest that obesity decreases your brain function, it’s not hard to come up with this bleak equation: studying = weight gain = stupidity. Ergo, studying makes you stupid. (Having drawn that equation, I suddenly need a sandwich.)

Of course, it’s not that simple. There are many other factors that contribute to weight gain — diet, physical activity, heredity — and even if you do find your cravings increase while studying, you can counter them by eating healthy foods and by taking time out to exercise a few minutes a day.

They might need to come out with a new version of that “This is your brain on drugs” ad if a group of scientists get their way. In a paper titled “Towards Responsible Use of Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs by the Healthy” published in Nature, seven scientists from the US and UK advocate the use of brain-enhancing prescription drugs like Adderall and Ritalin as study and work aids in a manner similar to caffeine. Their Peter Tosh-like solution to “legalize it” aims to make these drugs legal, stopping an illicit trade that, according to the article, is sweeping through college campuses around the world.

The stigma of using “drugs” is hard to overcome, but the scientists want us to realize the benefits of medications like Adderall and Ritalin, prescribed primarily to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Positive side effects include increased focus and attention span, enhanced memory, heightened reflexes and the ability to start fires with your mind. (I’ll have to double-check that last one.)

The report argues that these drugs should be no more controversial than brain-boosting activities like reading, sleeping, going to school, using the computer, eating and exercising:

The drugs just reviewed, along with newer technologies such as brain stimulation and prosthetic brain chips, should be viewed in the same general category as education, good health habits, and information technology — ways that our uniquely innovative species tries to improve itself.

However, the scientists do realize the need for further study of the drugs’ effects and, if legalized, the need for their regulation:

We call for enforceable policies concerning the use of cognitive-enhancing drugs to support fairness, protect individuals from coercion and minimize enhancement-related socioeconomic disparities.

The scientists stop short of mandating brain-altering drugs in schools and workplaces (gee, thanks, Big Brother), declaring:

Employers, schools or governments should not generally require the use of cognitive enhancements.

However, they add:

If particular enhancements are shown to be sufficiently safe and effective, this position might be revisited for those interventions.

Could we someday see kids lining up for their shots of Ritalin alongside their mumps and measles vaccines? If so, the sugar cereal industry could go bankrupt.

It looks like the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall wasn’t too far off base. Scientists at Arizona State University have developed a technique that uses ultrasound — you know, the thing you use to see babies before the stork comes — to stimulate and manipulate circuits in the brain. In doing so, they’ve provided us with not only a potentially powerful, noninvasive treatment for brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, but also, as lead investigator William “Jamie” Tyler points out, a sci fi lover’s wet dream:

One might be able to envision potential applications ranging from medical interventions to use in video gaming or the creation of artificial memories along the lines of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in Total Recall. Imagine taking a vacation without actually going anywhere?

Perhaps envisioning the sea of nerds lining up outside his lab to implant wedgie-free memories of high school, Tyler hedged his comment:

Obviously, we need to conduct further research and development, but one of the most exhilarating prospects is that low intensity, low frequency ultrasound permit deep-brain stimulation procedures without requiring exogenous proteins or surgically implanted medical devices.

Pray that they perfect this technology before you finish school so that you can implant memories of the periodic table, the Pythagorean theorem and the dates of every battle in the Civil War.