Information
Information
Quotes
Steven Pinker:
Critics of new media sometimes use science itself to press their case, citing research that shows how “experience can change the brain.” But cognitive neuroscientists roll their eyes at such talk. Yes, every time we learn a fact or skill the wiring of the brain changes; it’s not as if the information is stored in the pancreas. But the existence of neural plasticity does not mean the brain is a blob of clay pounded into shape by experience.
Experience does not revamp the basic information-processing capacities of the brain. Speed-reading programs have long claimed to do just that, but the verdict was rendered by Woody Allen after he read “War and Peace” in one sitting: “It was about Russia.” Genuine multitasking, too, has been exposed as a myth, not just by laboratory studies but by the familiar sight of an S.U.V. undulating between lanes as the driver cuts deals on his cellphone.
Moreover, as the psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons show in their new book “The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us,” the effects of experience are highly specific to the experiences themselves. If you train people to do one thing (recognize shapes, solve math puzzles, find hidden words), they get better at doing that thing, but almost nothing else. Music doesn’t make you better at math, conjugating Latin doesn’t make you more logical, brain-training games don’t make you smarter. Accomplished people don’t bulk up their brains with intellectual calisthenics; they immerse themselves in their fields. Novelists read lots of novels, scientists read lots of science.
Tim Ferriss
So the, have I found anything for the minimum effective dose for balance, agility, or mental performance like Nootropics? So I was as an undergrad first a neuroscience major primarily because I wanted to focus on smart drugs. [laughs]
For mental performance, this is something that I really debated quite a lot because I'm a huge fan of cognitive enhancement. And I didn't include any chapter specifically on that because I found looking at the literature that improving physical performance, what most people would divorce from their mind or brain, is actually the best way to improve cognitive performance.
And there's a great book called Spark which is written by a Harvard M.D. that looks at physical education in some very sophisticated programs from improving academic performance specifically by making students perform at a certain heart rate immediately prior to their worst subjects; really fascinating stuff.
But if we're talking about drugs. [laughs] I'm sure there a few people in this audience who probably tried Modafinil, among others. So Provigil which is an anti-narcolepsy drug. There are a lot of drugs that will improve short term memory, working memory, reaction speed.
Vasopressin which is an anti-diuretic hormone that's used in, let's say, bedwetting in children in some cases, also can improve short term memory.
The reason that I have ended up staying away from any of these drugs is that I've realized in the course of doing all this research and all this testing, that the brain is a very sensitive instrument.
And the brain, well the body, likes homeostasis. So if you interrupt any of the feedback loops you can cause some really significant long term problems. That's certainly true if you look at, let's say, anabolics' use. If you're using super-physiological high dose, let's just say, testosterone cypionate, then you can screw up your HPTA Axis. And if you screw up your hypothalamus, boy you're gonna have a lot of issues. So I've ended up staying away from the smart drugs most recently.
The exceptions would be Yerba Mate tea. I love Yerba Mate. And it contains a handful of stimulants that all have different pharmacokinetics so you end up getting this nice extended, like three to four hour buzz, which is great for writing, among other things.
And the other, I would say, for mental performance would be hunger. So when you are in a fasted state whether that's through intermittent fasting or otherwise, you will experience a heightened level of cognitive function and I think that does reflect back to evolution. From an evolutionary standpoint if you're hunting and gathering it's a good idea to have better visual acuity if you're really hungry [laughs] and you need to find food, among other things. But that's somewhat speculation.
Random
What are your thoughts on raising cognition (general or specific abilities) with drugs, stimulants and games like n-back?
Answer from Razib Khan:
i favor ‘em. a few years ago i went to a talk given by a guy who used mind-boosting drugs extensively, to the point where he admitted he was tacking off his expected lifespan by at least 5 years. i asked him where he’d gotten the idea, and he laughed and told me it was my blog in the early 2000s when i was posting on creatine!
Reddit AMA from a Neurosurgeon
learning implants ! what do you think of them ? are we anywhere close to have an implant that could actually help us to increase intelligence or speed up the learning process for humans or we haven't crossed the sci-fi line yet ?
Psychosurgery (or whatever you want to call it) is a difficult issue. How do you justify such a surgery to test your theory? There is one case report of a stimulator improving someone's memory capacity, but it was not a very rigorous investigation. We might one day be able to improve an individual skill like forming new memories. But if you look at people with amazing neurologic skills (savants et al), they almost always have deficits in other areas. There might not be a good way to improve the brain without a cost.
What are your thoughts on brain plasticity? Do you think in the future we'll be able to induce neuroplasticity in older patients?
I don't really understand this whole 'revolution' in the layperson literature regarding plasticity. >We've known about it for a very long time, but it's really popular right now for some reason. My thought is that it's how our brains learn things and it's therefore a very good thing. Like most things in the brain, it's a very delicate balance. Too much neuroplasticity and you'll forget things, not enough and you won't learn things. I think we'll probably figure out some ways to improve cognition in patients with alzheimer's disease, but not via changing neuroplasticity. (That's a complete guess, obviously.)