One of the long-held dreams of medical science is to find drugs that will increase intelligence and boost brain performance, aid concentration, and generally give us more control over thought, memory, and cognitive functioning. Some scientists now believe that the dream isn’t far from reality.

According to a recent report from Foresight, a future-oriented British think tank, a variety of new drugs may soon become available that will help us do everything from remembering important phone numbers to scoring higher on school exams. There will even be pills that smokers could take to break the habit.

Since the 1980s, researchers have made tremendous advances in neuroscience, genetics, and our general understanding of the brain. Technologies that were unimaginable just 20 years ago now allow us to look inside the brain and see how it works. In addition, pharmacology, aided by genetic engineering and high-tech biochemistry, has created better custom-designed drugs. Together, these have advanced our understanding of the brain and of how chemicals affect our behavior.

As a result, scientists are now seeing the possibility of genuine treatments for mental illness, actual cures for addictions of all sorts, and true enhancements of everyday mental processes. This new class of drugs is known as cognition enhancers. There seems to be little doubt in the scientific community that in our hectic, increasingly competitive world there will be widespread use of them as soon as they are available.

In fact, brain drugs are already in widespread use. The most common one is caffeine. Ritalin is prescribed to thousands of children with attention deficit disorder. Soldiers have long used various drugs to enhance or extend performance.

But in the last quarter century, amazing advances in both investigative technology and the pharmaceutical industry have led to the development of much more sophisticated drugs. These are now being used not just to treat mental illnesses, but for a wide variety of enhancements, even as newer, more targeted drugs are coming on line.

For example, Modafinil, which was developed to treat narcolepsy, is now being used to aid concentration on tasks. It improves memory, brightens the mood, and enhances alertness, but it doesn’t cause the anxiety and jitters associated with older analogs, such as amphetamines. And, unlike...