The Neurogenesis Experiment: Six ways to stimulate neuron growth | Hacker News Reader

The Neurogenesis Experiment: Six ways to stimulate neuron growth

mwinkelmann.com

19 pointsJasonNY15 comments

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Disregarding Neurogenesis, this guy is attempting all-at-once to,

1. Stop smoking, that is from almost chain smoking to none.

2. Start running 4km a day - I've done this, takes incredible amount of effort.

3. Lift etc. every evening - Not as hard as 2, but close.

4. Start meditating - if you do the proper way, incredibly hard.

5. Avoid junk food - difficulty depends, but sounds like he does consume pizza or Ben&Jerry’s daily.

I'd love to seem him succeeding in the 'coming weeks', but he won't. It'll take years at least.

He'll get linked though.

Yes I think the withdrawal effects from quitting smoking and likely to dwarf everything else. After several weeks the conclusion of his experiment is likely to be that 'Neurogenesis' makes you angry, anxious and unable to concentrate.

People have spent so much time talking themselves into schemes to motivate to do what is very simple: exercise, eat, drink, play. In moderation. It doesn't matter if you like bacon, it matters if you eat 6 strips every morning. It won't make you smarter to run 3k every day for a month, then quit in frustration. Just find a variety of physical hobbies you LIKE doing, and you won't need to psyche yourself into doing it. In disclosure, I (on a regular basis) bicycle, walk, run, climb, and dance. It doesn't feel like work, because they are all make me feel good. If you don't like doing anything physical, I don't know what to say to you but that you need to accept that you are your body. It is not just a thing that connects your hands to the keyboard.

Let me be the first to say, "sources please". Adult neurogenesis in humans is largely speculative, which leads me to think you're confusing it with neuroplasticity. Also, mood is regulated by neurotransmitters, especially serotonin. If neurogenesis is involved, that would be news to me.

That said, your steps are either harmless or beneficial, so I don't see a problem with this "experiment".

Poster is correct -- this article is complete BS. The steps mentioned are of course great to do and would increase bloodflow to the brain (which has definite positive effects). But, saying that the steps increase neurogenesis (and even speculating that this is a good thing) is completely unproven.

this article is complete BS [...] completely unproven

That's a little harsh. Not everything unproven is BS.

I didn't get the impression that the author was "saying that the steps increase neurogenesis". What he said was that there are findings to that effect about rats, and that he was "hopeful that these results also apply to humans". The main point is that he's curious and wants to try something. That experimental spirit deserves the label "scientific" more than your blanket judgmentalness does.

Incidentally, it wasn't too long ago that people in the name of "science" were stomping all over anyone who dared to suggest that "neurogenesis" might even exist. So I find your comment ironic.

Edit: the real problem with the proposed experiment is that its title is misleading, since it includes no way to measure anything about neurogenesis.

That's fair. If this is his or her motivation for doing good things, all the better.

Well ... there was a scientific debate over whether neurogenesis existed (in adult humans). I wouldn't say they were "stomping all over anyone" ;-)

I have to agree that my metaphor was heavy handed (heavy footed?), but I distinctly remember how this was not a debate, but a dogma. People who suggested brain cells could regenerate were ridiculed. Everyone "knew" they couldn't (everyone "scientific" that is). The reason I remember it so clearly is that it was an early example in my experience of seeing dogma in what other people called science. The idea that brain cells would have some special non-regenerating status struck me instinctively as preposterous. It was a great example of how people turn "We have not observed X" into "X never happens", and from there it's a tiny step to "People who believe in X are nutcases".

On a parenthetical note, I haven't yet got around to reading Kuhn but the basic idea there strikes me as profoundly correct. When the majority consciousness isn't ready to acknowledge a phenomenon, it simply doesn't "exist". Evidence can change received opinion, but only if a shift in majority consciousness occurs first. (That's how I understand Kuhn's paradigms anyway.)

Aerobic exercise at least has been shown to cause neurogenesis. Not only that, but it's associated with changes in total brain mass.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=aerobic%20neur...

"Chronic Antidepressant Treatment Increases Neurogenesis in Adult Rat Hippocampus" is a good start: http://www.neuroscience.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/24/9104

Yes, neurogenesis goes against everything we thought was happening. That's why it's exciting.

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/10/the_function_of_new_c...

One of the findings is antidepressants possibly increase neurogenesis, but the new growth takes some time thereby explaining the delay between starting on the medication and seeing results.

There is, unfortunately, pretty good evidence that caffeine inhibits neurogenesis.

Yikes. What is this evidence?

On both wikip and google, everything finally seem to point to this paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17400186

How accurate is that? Has it been reproduced? Should I stop drinking coffee?

It depends what you use coffee for. Given that the brain adapts very quickly to caffeine, you lose most benefits from the stimulant effect if you drink constant amounts (and there's a point at which you lose all benefit, even if you start drinking ridiculous amounts of it).

So, it's probably not worth it if you drink it regularly, because it doesn't make you much more alert in the steady-state.

This is unrelated to the other issues it may have.

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