from Hacker News

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

by RV86 on 2/27/15, 5:44 PM with 45 comments

• by xaa on 2/27/15, 7:06 PM

  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 as "cosmetic" and not worth any level of risk. You will note how almost all the evidence for putative nootropics comes from AD and similar research. Not healthy, young or middle-aged normals.

  I almost wish there were some kind of network for DIY biohackers to investigate nootropics by setting up blinded studies. Because that kind of research will not otherwise be funded or performed, and despite the risks and dubiousness of data that comes outside the IRB/clinical trial system, it seems better than nothing.

• by vilhelm_s on 2/27/15, 7:48 PM

  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? :)

• by ohyes on 2/27/15, 9:20 PM

  "I hit a plateau..." "I haven't picked up my dulcimer in several months"

  In my experience learning instruments follows a 90/10 sort of rule, you can get the easy stuff in a matter of weeks, the harder stuff is subject to severe diminishing returns. You have to practice much more to make the relevant progress. That virtuoso is not a virtuoso because he practiced as a child when he had neuro plasticity, he's a virtuoso because he practices hours a day and then thinks about his practicing when he's not practicing. Even someone who is a moderately good professional does this.

• by bsder on 2/27/15, 10:21 PM

  Has anybody shown that having an adult brain with non-child plasticity is a limitation?

  I find that my progress on guitar is a direct function of time, which is something else that children have in abundance but adults do not.

• by jakobegger on 2/27/15, 9:22 PM

  I'm very sceptical of drugs that interfere with neural function. Our brain is extremely complex, with dozens (or hundreds?) of chemicals interacting in intricate manners. We understand not even a tiny fraction of it, just some bits and pieces, and we think we can "fix" or even improve it by ingesting some chemical compound?

  Even the few psycho-active medicines we have, anti-depressants etc., barely work at all. They might have some positive effects in studies, but if you actually know someone who depends on such medication, you'll know that they're far from a cure; many people even refuse to take them because of the terrible side effects. And those are pills we have a few decades of experience with!

  I'm not holding my breath for a wonder drug that will miraculously engance our learning ability.

• by UhUhUhUh on 2/27/15, 7:45 PM

  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.

• by otakucode on 2/27/15, 7:43 PM

  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.

• by xhrpost on 2/27/15, 8:05 PM

  Bit of a tangent, but I just finished reading Spark which shines some light on how exercise can improve neuroplasticity. https://books.google.com/books?id=zM_9Ft1j40UC&lpg=PT36&dq=p...

• by api on 2/27/15, 9:33 PM

  It's always important to keep in mind that these things can be double-edged swords. There may be a tradeoff between plasticity and things like depth of focus on single subjects or the wide-ranging associations that characterize "wisdom."

  Absolutely not saying we shouldn't play with this stuff, just that the fact that systems are full of trade-offs should be remembered.

• by ajarmst on 2/28/15, 12:41 AM

  The brain is an absurdly complex, adaptive system that is the product of millions of years of evolution. We're not even really sure where personality and the "me" part of the self come from, other than that they seem to have a stronger genetic component than most people realize. We don't understand how it works remotely well enough to have a useful whole-brain model of its function (which means a lot of drug research is a primitive try-it-and-see-what-happens method, rather than the result of a detailed functional model of what SHOULD happen). We don't understand most of its more subtle pathologies (like depression) well enough to even properly evaluate treatments. Most treatments we do have for such things are of limited and short-term efficacy, and we don't even understand why they work. Maybe we're not nearly ready to start large-scale manipulation of its fundamental properties?

• by s_q_b on 2/27/15, 10:17 PM

  I'm not as pessimistic as most about the potential for nootropics. The usual argument against them states that if there was a way to significantly improve neural performance, evolution would have found it already.

  However, our bodies and brains evolved in an environment of near constant food scarcity, where surplus glucose was the chief constraint on neural development.

  Can you imagine the developmental pathways that could be opened if our bodies could leverage the massive amounts of excess energy we consume for more than stuffing it into adipose tissue?

• by aortega on 2/27/15, 7:19 PM

  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 an adult?

• by narrator on 2/27/15, 9:13 PM

  Do you really want to be that plastic? Mania may result because all your enforced norms suddenly become malleable. The ruts in the road serve a purpose.

• by sporkenfang on 2/27/15, 6:47 PM

  The author lost me at 'sewing the eyes shut of newborn kittens'. Sometimes animal testing is necessary, and sometimes it's unnecessarily cruel.

• by obblekk on 2/27/15, 6:11 PM

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

• by coldcode on 2/27/15, 8:39 PM

  All I take is 2000mg of B12 twice a (work) day which does seem to help in concentration.

• by sebastianconcpt on 2/27/15, 8:12 PM

  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.