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Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

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Re: Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

#11

Post by otakucode »

Would that be a good idea?

I could certainly see MANY potential dangers inherent in such a thing. Sure neuroplasticity sounds like it's all sunshine and kittens... but there's a good chance that there are some reasons our brains didn't evolve to retain that sort of plasticity throughout life...

That being said, if there is an experiment which has a decent chance of accomplishing this, I will be first to volunteer. I am aware that it may destroy me entirely, but I would be willing to take the risk. If nothing else, perhaps I'd be able to make a little contribution to the collective knowledge of mankind by showing how terrible of a thing too much neuroplasticity can be.

Re: Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

#12

Post by UhUhUhUh »

My answer is "no". Just because the initial pruning has to quickly find a balance between efficiency, speed and reliability vs. width, breadth of input/processing of new data. The 15,000 synapses/neuron that we have grown at around age 3 must be cut in half... After that, plasticity is still there and possibly can be boosted somewhat but not to the initial level. We have enough potential for plasticity left to learn and discover until an advanced age but it will require more work (i.e. expense of energy) and more sustained stimulation because the brain now needs to be "convinced" that it's going to be useful (i.e. rewarding) which our robotic lives doesn’t really allow, let alone promotes.

Re: Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

#13

Post by vilhelm_s »

Considering the cat/kitten experiment, where the more plastic brain was able to permanently re-purpose brain cells from one task to another, it seems slightly dangerous. Suppose I take the pill, go to the music classes, and end up an excellent mountain dulcimer player---and then find out that I accidentally overwrote my programming ability? :)

Re: Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

#15

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

yincrash wrote: post #7
aortega wrote: post #6

I don't get this "Child's brains are better" thing. A Child needs up to 10 years to speak, read and write correctly in their native language. An adult can do it in a couple of years, months sometimes (not my case!) I have a small kid and yes, their intelligence development is shocking and completely unlike any other creature on earth. But are there any proof that childrens are actually better/faster at anything than…

Learning a second language is not the same as learning a first language. There are many things you use from your first language that you use to learn a second.

and much more so you use the things you used to learn the second to much more quickly learn 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc...

Re: Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

#17

Post by sebastianconcpt »

vilhelm_s wrote: post #13

Considering the cat/kitten experiment, where the more plastic brain was able to permanently re-purpose brain cells from one task to another, it seems slightly dangerous. Suppose I take the pill, go to the music classes, and end up an excellent mountain dulcimer player---and then find out that I accidentally overwrote my programming ability? :)

Exactly. There is a reason for the plasticity decay

Re: Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

#18

Post by sebastianconcpt »

It's a great question but things have a price. You might hack and win that raised plasticity but you might compromise your memory.

Natural Selection put there a decay in brain's plasticity for a really good and time proven reason.

This is just an hypothesis: the decay in brain plasticity diminishes neophilia and raises neophobia to preserve culture's identity. The new generation attacks the current one with tides of its own new cool and the old resists with conservative trenches of realism. Over and over.

Re: Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

#19

Post by sharp11 »

obblekk wrote: post #2

No...? I found this article to be a lot of puff with a relatively simplistic interpretation of some cherry picked research.

Yes, for example, in second language acquisition the hypothesis of a critical period has been pretty much disproven. Also, the conflation of perfect pitch with musical ability is a big stumble. Still, quite an interesting article.

Re: Can neuroscience give my brain the plasticity of a child's?

#20

Post by xaa »

PinnBrain wrote: post #10
xaa wrote: post #5

A much better overview: http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics I am a bit torn about this subject. So, in my day job as a biomedical researcher, we would like to have a lot of evidence that something works before giving it to people. But the FDA/research system is not set up to deal with things like this, that are not to treat a disease per se, but rather to enhance a healthy human. Many MDs would see cognitive enhancement…

Neat. I take Modafinil or its enantiomer Nuvigil sometimes to be smarter or compensate for lack of sleep. Officially, it's for sleep apnea, which I had to take a sleep test to show. I don't see zero risk for cosmetic surgery (note the issues with any surgery), so perhaps that can serve as an analogue as we look more into enhancing "normal" people.

Sure. I get great results from Adderall and have heard good things about Modafinil. Tried it once with little effect, but it was from an Indian pharmacy and who knows how pure it was. I can't draw any conclusions whatsoever from this. Similarly, some people swear by racetams but I have adverse reactions to them (tired, eye strain, bad moods).

The internet is chock full of anecdotes about various nootropics, but very little empirical data. Gwern (linked above) tries to blind himself in some of his experiments, which is good, but still N=1.

What needs to happen is, IMO, people interested in nootropics sign up for a "trial", pay for the drug and any minor equipment needed to test efficacy, the trial administrator gets a pure sample of the drug and sends it out blinded to the participants. Then the results could be collected and possibly even published (in a journal that doesn't have an IRB requirement).

It could go even further if people could cough up the cash for a cheap genetic variation test like 23andme, and then the efficacy could be correlated with genetic variants.

But as it is, we are in the absolute dark ages about our knowledge about nootropic efficacy in normals. It is complicated by the fact that the most likely candidates are often controlled substances.

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