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Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

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Re: Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

#41

Post by noam87 »

philipkglass wrote: post #22
iconjack wrote: post #6

Isn't Flowers for Algernon required 7th-grade reading anymore? This isn't going to end well, people.

I would guess that you are right simply because most drugs that initially show promise in mice fail during clinical trials in humans. But it's also worth remembering that the trope in fiction of $REALLY_GOOD_THING turning out to be $BAD_THING in disguise is just that, dramatically convenient fiction. There's no natural "game balance" to the universe. Yet popular entertainment is very small-c conservative about human…

Maybe not vaccines, but certainly antibiotics fit the trope :)

Re: Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

#42

Post by goatlover »

beambot wrote: post #21
AstralStorm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sample size of 1, no blinding, no verification of the substance received. Quite worthless. Placebo effect is strong enough children recognised as more intelligent by chance do act and measure smarter.

Many major innovations occurred from individuals experimenting on themselves. In fact, it's one of the few ways to make progress when you have overbearing regulatory agencies. You should be glad that many enterprising "sample sizes of one" are willing to become anecdata for everyone else. They push the boundaries so that maybe, just maybe, we get the benefits of these advances within our lifetimes rather than after m…

But we can't know from a sample of one whether the placebo effect was in play, or whether the individual's response was atypical.

Re: Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

#43

Post by gizmo686 »

noam87 wrote: post #41
philipkglass wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess that you are right simply because most drugs that initially show promise in mice fail during clinical trials in humans. But it's also worth remembering that the trope in fiction of $REALLY_GOOD_THING turning out to be $BAD_THING in disguise is just that, dramatically convenient fiction. There's no natural "game balance" to the universe. Yet popular entertainment is very small-c conservative about human…

Maybe not vaccines, but certainly antibiotics fit the trope :)

Why?

My understanding is that the only problem we have with antibiotics is that they breed antibiotic resistant diseases; but that is not really worse than us not having antibiotics at all.

Re: Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

#44

Post by beambot »

goatlover wrote: post #42
beambot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many major innovations occurred from individuals experimenting on themselves. In fact, it's one of the few ways to make progress when you have overbearing regulatory agencies. You should be glad that many enterprising "sample sizes of one" are willing to become anecdata for everyone else. They push the boundaries so that maybe, just maybe, we get the benefits of these advances within our lifetimes rather than after m…

But we can't know from a sample of one whether the placebo effect was in play, or whether the individual's response was atypical.

How do you think humanity learned about new medicines before clinical studies? A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step; or in this case, a single experimenter.

Re: Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

#46

Post by phkahler »

hinkley wrote: post #18
iconjack wrote: post #6

Isn't Flowers for Algernon required 7th-grade reading anymore? This isn't going to end well, people.

At some distant point in the future we will understand biology so well that we can see the ways in which evolution produced local maxima for certain processes, and we will be able to see alternate versions that are more optimal but would (almost) never evolve on their own. At that point, we will indeed be able to create artificial molecules or genes that make brains more efficient at using oxygen and sugar to produce…

...ways in which evolution produced local maxima...

There is a compelling argument against any simple way to enhance people. It's that if a simple change even the addition of a single molecule could make people significantly better, evolution would have found that change already. With nature we are stuck with much more incremental change. So I agree that science may eventually find some nice enhancements but they will require more than a single molecule or gene change.

Re: Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

#47

Post by phkahler »

leemailll wrote: post #45
KlaudijLikon wrote: post #17

The fact that you can patent a molecule blows my mind.

This is how big pharma works.

Yep, isolate lovastatin from red yeast, patent it, market it, and then try to make the supplements take it out since they're not FDA regulated.

BTW, red yeast rice did wonders for my blood work.

Re: Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

#48

Post by achr2 »

zafka wrote: post #10
cypherpunks01 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One person claimed to have had it synthesized and taken it awhile back (linked from the article) http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/68589-isrib-group-buy-n...

I see that you can buy it from Aldrich: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/sml0843?la...

90$ for 5mg, required single dosage appears to several times this... Could get expensive.

Re: Can a molecule that makes mice smarter heal a human brain?

#50

Post by cariaso »

scotty79 wrote: post #40
beambot wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would guess that you are right simply because most drugs that initially show promise in mice fail during clinical trials in humans. What about the contrapositive... How many substances fail in mouse studies (and are discarded), yet would have been viable in humans? Any known examples of this?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin Not sure if it applies though because it being severly harmful to rodents hasn't prevented us from looking into this substance closely. Quite the opposite.

Much of our human testing only happened after a human attempted to use it for suicide, unsuccessfully. If anything this example helps to prove the parent's point.

from your wikipedia link

After an incident in 1951, where a US Army inductee unsuccessfully attempted suicide with multiple doses of warfarin in rodenticide and recovered fully after presenting to a hospital, and being treated with vitamin K (by then known as a specific antidote),[70] studies began in the use of warfarin as a therapeutic anticoagulant. It was found to be generally superior to dicoumarol, and in 1954 was approved for medical use in humans. An early recipient of warfarin was US president Dwight Eisenhower, who was prescribed the drug after having a heart attack in 1955.[70]

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