Egging You On

Back in the 1980s, there was a popular antidrug commercial that showed a guy holding up an egg and saying, This is your brain, then pointing to a heated pan and explaining, This is drugs. The guy then cracks the egg into the pan and as it fries, he warns, “This is your brain on drugs.” The metaphor served up by the Partnership For A Drug Free America always struck me as being a few eggs short of a dozen, after all, turning an uncracked egg into a popular breakfast treat hardly seems like a negative outcome. Forget my anxiety and borderline depression, give me my brain on drugs with a side of rye. Our attitudes toward some drugs has changed. So has our brain imaging technology. These days, when someone says, “This is your brain on drugs,” they’re likely pointing to images captured from a functional M.R.I. scanner. It’s a lot less tasty than the brain on drugs they served in the 80s, but it’s a lot more accurate. NYT (Gift Article): This Is Literally Your Brain on Drugs. My neuroscience chops are a little rusty, but it seems pretty clear you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.