Toward a Pill That Helps Us Learn as Fast as Kids
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Briefly: Acetylcholinesterase terminates acetylcholine neurotransmission events by deactivating the acetylcholine, allowing it to be reused. An acetylcholinesterase inhibitor such as the Donepezil used in the article inhibits the action of acetylcholinesterase, which in turn enhances acetylcholine neurotransmission in a dose-dependent manner.
Highly potent acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are used as poisons (Sarin gas, for example) because they interfere with all of the acetylcholine-based neurotransmission that happens throughout your brain and body. Less potent inhibitors are used at lower doses in Alzheimer's disease as it is hoped that they will improve cognitive function and perhaps even slow disease progression. Thus far the results have been mixed.
Now the bad news: Cholinergic neurotransmission is widespread through your brain and your body. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are a very blunt and non-specific way to manipulate that neurotransmission. Unfortunately, you can't just enhance memory formation and learning related neurotransmission, you amplifiy cholinergic transmission indiscriminately everywhere. As a result, it's possible to get some quite negative effects as well. There are reports of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors causing or at least inducing PTSD-like symptoms ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17308243 ). Furthermore, we just don't know the long-term effects of these medications on young, healthy adults as they've primarily been studied in elderly populations.
In short: It's potentially very unwise to use Donepezil or similar medications for the purposes of enhancing your learning or your memory. Leave the experimentation to the carefully controlled studies until more is known on these powerful substances.
I bet if I wash down a Donepezil with my Soylent every morning I'll be king of the valley.
I don't think this is true. I think a determined adult learns faster.
an adult learning a language has the benefit of both abstract and pragmatic knowledge of language, having spoken at least one for some time. they don't need to spend time learning, for example, how to move their tongue to make different noises. an adult learning a language also has the benefit of being able to read, or listen, to facilitate their learning. a child learns a language without any of this groundwork.
i feel like maybe you are underestimating the sheer amount of information a child has to process and how completely foreign everything we take for granted is to them.
Anyone familiar with the topic care to further elaborate on this phenomenon? thanks
There does seem to be a lack of research that attempts to correct for this, or at least I can't find it. In the absence of data, I prefer to believe that I'm at least as able to learn new things as 6 year old me.
Don't confuse schooling with education/learning.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition
Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis
The critical period hypothesis is that SLA is age dependent and can only be done properly as a child. However "The critical period hypothesis is the subject of a long-standing debate in linguistics and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age."
I am not familiar with the research in this field, but I don't think it is clear cut that SLA is age dependent. FLA does appear to be though.
I've also seen many adults acquire second languages and fail to do so. I have also learned to speak a second language fluently as an adult myself.
My hypothesis is that adults' greater difficulty in learning a language is mostly based in fear of failure, social embarrassment, the vulnerability of asking for help, and the necessary process of making a fool of yourself along the way. Children are unafraid to blunder repeatedly until they get it right.
But, you are right, nobody seems to take into consideration the very special situation in which kids find themselves: if a determined adult is let free to study and apply himself to a craft, 8 hours a day, without the need to provide or take care of others, without any need to think about money, mortgages and paying the bills... What would happen?
People like that exist and they are the proof that you can actually learn and be proficient even when you're older.
Professional soccer star Marco Van Basten retired when he was 32. He went on to become a golf champion and, incredibly enough, a backgammon champion.
Professional italian musician Franco Battiato never took up a brush in his life. Years ago he decided that he had to become a good painter and he went on to do it.
These are two examples I recall, but I think I made my point sufficiently clear: if you have the time, the resources, the commitment you can probably make a little talent flourish even in you late decades.
That said I'm not sure there are any cases besides languages where adults don't crush children. Their superiority is best illustrated by the incredible rarity of L2 speakers who won't be obvious after 10 minutes by grammar or syntax slips or the unicorns who can do that and have native accents.
My favourite data point on children's superiority over adults at language learning is the list with one member.
Adult Learners of English Who Wrote a Classic Work of Literature in it.[a]
Joseph Conrad
[a] Nabokov grew up with English governesses and could read it before he could read Russian.
However the reason I doubt the long term effectiveness of trying to recreate this state of learning - it would likely be highly effective if your boss said "we've got an opening in Japan, want it?" Being able to learn language like a child would be advantageous, body language for instance being from the UK living in North America my first reaction when someone says "peace out" and gives me the V I get an adrenaline surge because to me they just gave me a bigger insult than flipping me the bird. However I remember very little of my childhood or the things I learnt.
I remember a lot >10ya but very little <10. I have no problem with learning as an adult, I can learn a large amount of information on diverse subjects and not really try to retain it. There is no issue with learning, it's an issue with focus because the things I'm learning aren't as easy and it's easier to just not do it and no one but myself is going to punish me for not learning.
They just casually put that there, but I don't think most readers will be exactly familiar with what that means? It's basically raising the baselevel of what is one of the most common neurotransmitters. It's a carpet-bomb, not the targeted strike the article makes it out to be.
In unusual cases temporarily tweaking learning rate can be profitable, and it could apply to brain too.
Maybe if we were still cavemen living in a technologically stagnant world.
The world is changing extremely fast. Humanity needs neuroplasticity boosters to keep up.
"Thanks - no, all made up, wrote it nearly 15 yrs ago, before I'd heard of modafinil, certainly before the nootropic boom."
What you eat has the largest effect on your brain chemistry.
I thought the article was good. It didn't overhype any expectations of the drugs being tested. The research appears to be proceeding cautiously, but optimistically.
Take a look at the research on how the average diet of carbs and process foods affects our body. A ketogenic diet has shown to increase brain function in a recent study. I'll try to find it and post here.
Understanding the diseased brain and using drugs to reverse/attack the root causes of neurodegenerative disorders will help further humanity no doubt. The ketogenic diet does seem to help from what I've read though, so that in conjunction with drugs could be big.
these aren't mutually exclusive. you seem to be suggesting no one is studying how diet affects brain function?
Neuroplasticity- how the brain is wired (neutral pathways), is a more plausible explanation for dysfunction in our lives. fMRI scans can confirm where activity is taking place in the neurotypical brain as opposed to those who suffer from disorders. What you eat is not going to magically repair the activity in these parts of the brain.
What you eat absolutely affects brain chemistry. Eg friends of mine in grad school were studying depression via tryptophan depletion. They'd give volunteers a homemade protein drink which would reliably knock down serotonin levels. In other words, a milkshake that made you depressed. No drugs required.
They tried to induce depression? That's prison camp science, do your friends study at the Josef Mengele memorial faculty of Medicine?