Doctors treat millions of children with Ritalin every year to improve their ability to focus on tasks, but scientists now report that Ritalin also directly enhances the speed of learning.
In animal research, the scientists showed for the first time that Ritalin boosts both of these cognitive abilities by increasing the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine deep inside the brain. Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers neurons use to communicate with each other. They release the molecule, which then docks onto receptors of other neurons. The research demonstrated that one type of dopamine receptor aids the ability to focus, and another type improves the learning itself.
The scientists also established that Ritalin produces these effects by enhancing brain plasticity – strengthening communication between neurons where they meet at the synapse. Research in this field has accelerated as scientists have recognized that our brains can continue to form new connections – remain plastic – throughout life.
PhysOrg: Ritalin boosts learning by increasing brain plasticity
(via Chris S.)
a crow, when first faced with a bit of meat dangling from a bit of string, figures out a solution pretty much instantly. This has led researchers to posit that crows build mental models that generate solutions, instead of relying on trial and error. Now, a bunch of Kiwis have published research in PLoS One that suggests crows don’t actually build models.
What is the difference between model-based solutions and feedback-based solutions? When we rely on feedback, we first perform an action—pull on the string and trap it underfoot—if we perceive that we are closer to our goal (the meat is now closer), we repeat the action. A model-based solution, on the other hand, involves understanding that the meat is connected to a bit of string, and that to get the meat, we must pull the string up. In the second case, feedback after each step is not required, because we understand the problem and know that we will be rewarded in the end. [...]
I must admit to having a little problem with that conclusion. First, one crow did solve the problem; second, the crows all varied widely in their performance on all of the tests, suggesting that problem-solving abilities vary wildly between individuals—no surprise there. Finally, I think the distinction between model-building and feedback-based problem solving skills are artificial points in a mental toolkit that spans a continuum.
Ars Technica: Problem-solving crows may not be as smart as we thought
See also: Joshua Klein’s classic TED talk about the intelligence of crows
Universities must investigate measures, including random dope testing, to tackle the increasing use of cognitive enhancment drugs by students for exams, a leading behavioural neuroscientist warns.
Student use of drugs, such as Ritalin and modafinil, available over the internet and used to increase the brain’s alertness, had “enormous implications for universities”, said Barbara Sahakian, a professor of clinical neuropsychology at Cambridge University’s psychiatry department.
Normally prescribed for neurological disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy, such drugs boost acetylcholine in the brain, improving alertness and attention. Their use has prompted concerns that they could give students an unfair advantage. “This is something that universities really have to discuss. They should have some strategy, some kind of active policy,” Sahakian said.
Guardian: Universities told to consider dope tests as student use of ’smart drugs’ soars
(via h+)
Previous look at smart drugs here at Technoccult
Wood favors a conservative definition of tool use. By that standard—an animal using a solid object to solve an immediate problem, rather than just to provide defense against potential predators—there aren’t any real clear examples of octopuses using tools. But, he said, defining tool use isn’t a black or white issue. There’s no single, official right answer.
Mather works from a different, but still valid, definition. She doesn’t count the coconut shell as a tool, because the octopus isn’t modifying the shell in any way, and isn’t using it to alter other things in its environment.
But she does think octopuses use tools. In 1991, she documented octopuses collecting rocks and stacking them, outside the opening of a shelter, to form a protective fence. In fact, she said, the octopuses tended to do this before they went to sleep. That doesn’t count as tool use to Wood, but with several scientifically sound definitions, there’s room for interpretation.
Boing Boing: Behind the meme: Secrets of octopus intelligence
Cephalopods lovers should also check out Fuck Yeah Octopus.
Reading Mutate makes you smarter:
In addition to assorted bad breaks and pleasant surprises, opportunities and insults, life serves up the occasional pink unicorn. The three-dollar bill; the nun with a beard; the sentence, to borrow from the Lewis Carroll poem, that gyres and gimbles in the wabe.
An experience, in short, that violates all logic and expectation. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that such anomalies produced a profound “sensation of the absurd,” and he wasn’t the only one who took them seriously. Freud, in an essay called “The Uncanny,” traced the sensation to a fear of death, of castration or of “something that ought to have remained hidden but has come to light.”
At best, the feeling is disorienting. At worst, it’s creepy.
Now a study suggests that, paradoxically, this same sensation may prime the brain to sense patterns it would otherwise miss — in mathematical equations, in language, in the world at large.
New York Times: How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect
(via Cryptogon)
From: XKCD
Remember folks:
(Image via Johnny Brainwash)
Follow-up related to the dual n-back test and its use in intelligence amplification:
Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have shown for the first time that the active training of the working memory brings about visible changes in the number of dopamine receptors in the human brain. The study, which is published in the journal Science, was conducted with the help of PET scanning and provides deeper insight into the complex interplay between cognition and the brain’s biological structure. [...]
Professor Klingberg and his colleagues have previously shown that the working memory can be improved with a few weeks’ intensive training. Through a collaborative project conducted under the Stockholm Brain Institute, the researchers have now taken a step further and monitored the brain using Positron Emission Tomography (PET scans), and have confirmed that intensive brain training leads to a change in the number of dopamine D1 receptors in the cortex.
Science Daily: Cognitive Training Can Alter Biochemistry Of The Brain
Previously: Increase your intelligence with 20mins a day brain excerise
Dual n-back training apps:
Soak Your Head (Microsoft Silverline based)
Cognitive Fun (Javascript based)
Brain Workshop (Windows, Mac, possibly Linux)
hback (Linux)
N-Back Suite (iPhone)
IQ Boost (iPhone)
So far, scientists here have found little evidence that diet or exercise affects the risk of dementia in people over 90. But some researchers argue that mental engagement — doing crossword puzzles, reading books — may delay the arrival of symptoms. And social connections, including interaction with friends, may be very important, some suspect. In isolation, a healthy human mind can go blank and quickly become disoriented, psychologists have found.
“There is quite a bit of evidence now suggesting that the more people you have contact with, in your own home or outside, the better you do” mentally and physically, Dr. Kawas said. “Interacting with people regularly, even strangers, uses easily as much brain power as doing puzzles, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this is what it’s all about.”
New York Times: At the Bridge Table, Clues to a Lucid Old Age
An article about Red Bull drinking 92 year old bridge players is a good compliment to this New Yorker article about 20 and 30 somethings trying to squeeze as much performance out of their brains as possible.
See also:
Blue Zones
5 real products of the 90s cyberpunk & transhumanist hype
Could Caffeine Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease?
Also, whenever I start to worry about growing older, I take comfort in what Alejandro Jodorowsky had to say in this interview:
You’re 77 now. How are you coping with growing older?
It’s fantastic! I like it a lot. I don’t want to change myself. If you said, Do you want to be 40 years old [again] and I would say, maybe my body, but not my mind. It’s a nightmare, a social nightmare to get old – to get Parkinson’s, to become an idiot, but every day the brain is making new connections and is developing, like the universe. Your soul is getting better and better because you are losing what is not necessary. It’s fantastic to get old! It’s an incredible feeling of freedom, incredible!
This has been in my virtual “to read” pile for a long time. It’s more interesting than I expected.
If we eventually decide that neuroenhancers work, and are basically safe, will we one day enforce their use? Lawmakers might compel certain workers—emergency-room doctors, air-traffic controllers—to take them. (Indeed, the Air Force already makes modafinil available to pilots embarking on long missions.)
New Yorker: The underground world of “neuroenhancing” drugs.
I tried piracetam in college, but between the cost (I had to order it from Biogenesis Labs and the way it made my stomach feel, I didn’t think it was worth the slight boost.
I have found that Biotest Laboratory’s Spike is an effective “cognitive enhancer,” however. I used it during both Esozones to keep alert and productive on very little sleep under high pressure circumstances. You used to be able to buy it at GNC, but it seems they don’t carry it any more. You can still buy it online. I didn’t find the energy drink they market to be as effective as the pills.
Spike’s “secret sauce” is “thiamine di(2-methylpropionate) disulfide.” It sounds fancy, and they make an effort to make it appear they have something new and exclusive, but it’s really just a chemical name for sulbutiamine, which has been around since the classic Smart Drugs book and was reviewed in Mondo 2000.
Although it’s old, by no means do I consider this product “safe” – use at your own risk.
Almost one-third of the world’s people don’t get enough iodine from food and water. The result in extreme cases is large goiters that swell their necks, or other obvious impairments such as dwarfism or cretinism. But far more common is mental slowness.
When a pregnant woman doesn’t have enough iodine in her body, her child may suffer irreversible brain damage and could have an I.Q. that is 10 to 15 points lower than it would otherwise be. An educated guess is that iodine deficiency results in a needless loss of more than 1 billion I.Q. points around the world. [...]
“Probably no other technology,” the World Bank said of micronutrients, “offers as large an opportunity to improve lives … at such low cost and in such a short time.”
Yet the strategy hasn’t been fully put in place, partly because micronutrients have zero glamour. There are no starlets embracing iodine. And guess which country has taken the lead in this area by sponsoring the Micronutrient Initiative? Hint: It’s earnest and dull, just like micronutrients themselves.
Ta-da — Canada!
Full Story: New York Times
(Thanks Justin)
All that chocolate might actually help finish the bumper Christmas crossword over the seasonal period. According to Oxford researchers working with colleagues in Norway, chocolate, wine and tea enhance cognitive performance.
The team from Oxford’s Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics and Norway examined the relation between cognitive performance and the intake of three common foodstuffs that contain flavonoids (chocolate, wine, and tea) in 2,031 older people (aged between 70 and 74).
Participants filled in information about their habitual food intake and underwent a battery of cognitive tests.Those who consumed chocolate, wine, or tea had significantly better mean test scores and lower prevalence of poor cognitive performance than those who did not. The team reported their findings in the Journal of Nutrition.
The role of micronutrients in age-related cognitive decline is being increasingly studied. Fruits and beverages such as tea, red wine, cocoa, and coffee are major dietary sources of polyphenols, micronutrients found in plant-derived foods. The largest subclass of dietary polyphenols is flavonoids, and it has been reported in the past that those who consume lots of flavonoids have a lower incidence of dementia.
Full Story: Science Daily
(via Steven Walling)
Drugs that encourage the growth of new neurons in the brain are now headed for clinical trials. The drugs, which have already shown success in alleviating symptoms of depression and boosting memory in animal models, are being developed by BrainCells, a San Diego-based start-up that screens drugs for their brain-growing power. The company hopes the compounds will provide an alternative to existing antidepressants and says they may also prove effective in treating cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s.
“The fact that you might be able to take small molecules to stimulate specific cells to regenerate in the brain is paradigm-shifting,” says Christopher Eckman, a neuroscientist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. “[This approach] takes advantage of the body’s innate ability to correct itself when given appropriate cues.” Eckman studies compounds that boost brain cell growth in models of neurodegenerative disease and is not involved with BrainCells.
Full Story: Technology Review
(via Tomorrow Museum)
See also: ergoloid, Albert Hoffman’s other invention.
We’ve mentioned before purported benefits of the N-Back Task on fluid intelligence:
In this case, subjects trained on a complex version of the so-called ‘n-back task’ – a difficult visual/auditory memory test – improved their scores on a set of IQ questions drawn from a German intelligence measure called the Bochumer Matrizen-Test. (The Bochumer Matrizen-Test is a harder version of the well-known Ravens Progressive Matrices).
Initially, the test subjects scored an average of 10 questions correctly on the IQ test.
But after the group trained on the n-back task for 25 minutes a day for 19 days, they averaged 14.7 correct answers, an increase of more than 40 percent. (A control group that was not trained showed only a very slight performance increase.)
Buschkuehl’s team postulates that the n-back task improves working memory – how many pieces of information subjects can keep in their head – as well as the ability to control the brain’s attention. Fluid intelligence tests require those types of thinking, and the training improved performance in these underlying skills.
Grinding points out two applications you can use to practice n-Back Tasks on your own:
Web based N-Back test (requires Microsoft Silverlight)
hback (for Linux)
The latest issue of Wired is dedicated to intelligence enhancement – and it’s filled with interesting articles and tips.
Wired: Get Smarter issue.
Here’s a taste:
Fluid intelligence was previously thought to be genetically hard-wired, but the finding suggests that with about 25 minutes of rigorous mental training a day, healthy adults could improve their mental capacities.
[...]
David Geary, a professor at the University of Missouri and author of The Origin of Mind, who was not involved with the study, said training in one test generally doesn’t generate gains on a different test.
“Transfer is tough to get,” Geary said. “Training in task A doesn’t typically improve performance on task B.”
But in this case, subjects trained on a complex version of the so-called “n-back task” — a difficult visual/auditory memory test — improved their scores on a set of IQ questions drawn from a German intelligence measure called the Bochumer Matrizen-Test. (The Bochumer Matrizen-Test is a harder version of the well-known Ravens Progressive Matrices).
Initially, the test subjects scored an average of 10 questions correctly on the IQ test.
But after the group trained on the n-back task for 25 minutes a day for 19 days, they averaged 14.7 correct answers, an increase of more than 40 percent. (A control group that was not trained showed only a very slight performance increase.)
Buschkuehl’s team postulates that the n-back task improves working memory — how many pieces of information subjects can keep in their head — as well as the ability to control the brain’s attention. Fluid intelligence tests require those types of thinking, and the training improved performance in these underlying skills.
Full Story: Wired
However, they note elsewhere that Brain Age hasn’t been proved to make you smarter.
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