Sorry, Adults, No New Neurons for Your Aging Brains | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, Adults, No New Neurons for Your Aging Brains

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28 pointsazizsaya15 comments

Different write-up, same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16541444

Somewhat related: I think this title should not be read as an hypothetical confirmation of the usual layman's asumption that 'kids learns better and faster that adults'.

Which is a misconception I'm often confronted with and irritates me quite a bit, especially when it comes in its extreme flavour of 'I just can't learn this new field/langage/tool/technique because I'm not a kid anymore'.

And I think you've already guessed what's the reaction when I try to explain in simple terms brain's plasticity and the fact that neural pathways can be made/upgraded threw sheer willforce. Something along 'well, don't try to teach me (about learning or whatever), I've already said that I can't learn anymore!'.

"kids learns better and faster that adults'.

Which is a misconception I'm often confronted with and irritates me quite a bit, "

Why is that a misconception?

The example you give are from people saying can't learn at all, which is something different.

Actually I've put said example in a precise context:

  especially *when it comes in its extreme flavour* of 'I just can't learn this new field/langage/tool/technique because I'm not a kid anymore'.

As for the misconception itself: 'kids learns better and faster that adults' can only be false, because if it was true then every kid would learn everything better/faster than any adult. Can a random kid learns cutting edge brain surgery techniques faster than every living adult? Nope, and here goes our misconception.

Now I get what those persons are really trying to say: they mean 'When I was young I was required to learn, but now I'm grown you won't get me back to school'. Which is still irritating to me (in the context).

"Can a random kid learns cutting edge brain surgery techniques faster than every living adult"

If both would have the same level of knowledge, then yes, the random child would for sure learn the new techniques faster than the random adult.

"'kids learns better and faster that adults' can only be false, because if it was true then every kid would learn everything better/faster than any adult"

You simply mix up things here to support your basic, wrong claim. Children do learn faster than adults. Countless study's support that. But nobody claimed, like you wrongly did, that it is meant, that they can learn every skill faster, when skills have prerequisites, which they are missing, but the slower learning adult already have.

And that there are obviously retards as well, sure thing. But again, nobody ever claimed that every child learns faster than every adult. "in general" is the catchphrase.

Learned something?

edit: to put away a bit of snarkynes. I do support your intentions and very much agree, that as long as we are alive we can and should learn new things. Stopping to learn equals death for me. So people who use that "can't learn as I am no child anymore" I pity their lazyness. But it still doesn't change the fact that children learn fast, because they indeed have to learn EVERYTHING and we already know quite a bit about the world ... so they are "optimized" to learn, while we are more "optimized" to using our knowledge and skills ...

Indeed, your edit is way more civil ;) Let's agree on not agreeing then (and sorry, no, I did not learn anything).

And please allow me to refer to real and actual scientific studies.

The critical period for language acquisition

Snow, C. and Hoefnagel-Hoehle, M. (1982) - http://grammar.ucsd.edu/courses/00-OLD/lign179/snow.hh.82.pd...

On the precise point of learning a L2 language, teenagers and adults learn faster and better than children: "The crucial findings of relevance for the CPH were that the 3- to 5-year olds scored consistently worse than the older groups on all the tests and that the 12- to 15-year-olds showed the most rapid acquisition of all the skills tested. These findings are basis for rejecting the hypothesis that the period 2 to 12 years constitutes an optimal time for language acquisition."

And a second one:

Maturational Constraints on Language Learning

Newport, 1990 - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1207/s15516709cog1401_...

Different rates of L2 may reflect psychological and social factors that favor child learners, instead of mere brain chemistry: "The evidence from several studies of both first and second language acquisition suggests that normal language learning occurs only when exposure to the language begins early in life."

Ok, I will look into it, they sound interesting, but I lack the time right now. And the "learned anything" ... was kind of a joke. So you didn't learned anything ... see, you are too old ;)

Edit: but after a first glance:

- well, besides, that those study's are old, they are also controversy and explicitly state that. And they look to me like the point I raised, that they maybe didn't account for prior knowledge in their findings. But I will look more into it.

Well, then yes, please, be my guest and look into it.

And kindly point to me any study (may I say the countless studies) that can support your claim: 'Children do learn faster than adults. Countless study's support that.'.

Marijuana promotes neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus [1].

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253627/

The old hypothesis was that many things — famously anti-depressants and excercise — promote neurogenesis. This study is refuting that whole bank of research, which was based on indirect observations.

I think that the number of neurons is not the single parameter to take in consideration. At birth the brain is a kind of "soup" made of disconnected neurons - except a small kernel structured during the pre-natal life for basic managementof organs. Then repeated external stimuli create connections between neurons, stronger and more complex, leading to a functional brain with memory, "computing" capacities, redundancy, associative capacity. An old brain loses neurons, more and more, but thanks to brain's plasticity and permanent stimuli, it can keep most of its capacities for a long time. The problem is that the small hippocampus is a bottleneck. When it begins to be buried below beta-amiloid and tau-protein, the rest of the brain is still functional but no more reachable. It's the end.

It's how I see those things. What do you think of that?

"Thats okay kids, enjoy the process of making new ones, while you still can."

;)

"cells whose functions aren't yet fully defined", so we have 'unprogrammed' neurons maybe, some spare capacity, created, defined but no value, good to know it's a static language in there :)

I dunno. I feel smarter and sharper at 40 than I ever did in my 20s. Something else happening.

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