Want to be Smarter?

[l0rd]

On the topic of brain science, one area has recently perked my interest—neurogenesis.

 

While up until the 1990's it was believed by neurologists that neurons, or "brain cells", do not regenerate after early childhood, this was recently disproved. People came to this early hypothesis by simply looking around them—seeing bright young minds contrast their demented and aged counterpart lying in beds of nursing homes while watching infomercials in piles of their own excrement. Two and two were put together and it was deduced that over time one's braincells progressively depopulate, with maybe a few million measly neurons by age 90.

 

While this original hypothesis holds much truth, its premise underestimated the regenerative properties of our brains. And while it might be true that overtime the number of neurons in our brain decrease, it is not true that our neuron population is at its highpoint the second we pop out of our mother's womb. Relatively recently we have discovered in lab mice that new neurons are created well into adulthood. And mice adhering to specific lifestyles, diets, or activities fostered this regeneration much higher than their regular counterparts.

 

What has been scientifically proven, however, is the direct and very noticeable benefits that exercise, low caloric diets, sufficient sleep, stress levels, among other things can aid the regeneration of neurons and in-turn make people smarter.

 

While neurogenesis is a fairly newly discovered phenomenon, I believe that eventually medical science will be able to stimulate the regeneration artificially, potentially making the overall gene pool more intelligent, getting rid age-caused mental illness such as Alzheimer's disease, and making you smarter. Human umbilical cords and other stem cell research is already giving positive results for lab mice, so who knows what the future will bring.

[fastortoise]

What if it's the links (amount and strength) between neurons that make you smarter? That's always been my intuitive model of the brain :geek:

[Giordano]

getting rid age-caused mental illness such as Alzheimer's disease,

Yes. Hope they find something in my lifetime. :pray:

[Furah]

getting rid age-caused mental illness such as Alzheimer's disease,

Yes. Hope they find something in my lifetime. :pray:

[archimage_a]

It is fundermentally impossible to make someone smarter by increasing the number of neurons....In the same way you cannot make a computer more intelligent by adding extra RAM. The computer needs something to be installed on the memory, which it can then run on the RAM.

The same is true for humans. We need to have somethign stored in our memory which our neurons can then fire off in random patterns to generate thoughts. More thoughts are not neccessarily a good thing though, as thoughts would increase by exponetially...

Starting thought * Starting thought = Starting thought + Starting thought + Starting thought + Starting thought

2*2=4, then 4*4=16, 16*16= 256

 

Meaning memory would be filled up faster, and if you happen to be thinking about something useless...say curtains you now have 65536 digits to do with Curtains, compared with the 16 digits to do with curtains before. True you might discover a new type of curtain but is that really that useful?

 

I once studied what I think about and came out with the number of 1 useful thought every 10 seconds(Actually it was about 1 minute of useful thinking per ten minutes but you get the point)... So rather than my 65536 folders of usefulness I would have 4294967296 digits of usefulness and 42949672960 digits of irrelevant rubbish being created every 10 seconds.

 

So I for one don't like this idea...It sounds like taking a bad egg and trying to make a souffle out of it in the hopes it will taste better. Or giving a chainsaw to a beaver.

[atronic92]

It is fundermentally impossible to make someone smarter by increasing the number of neurons....In the same way you cannot make a computer more intelligent by adding extra RAM. The computer needs something to be installed on the memory, which it can then run on the RAM.

The same is true for humans. We need to have somethign stored in our memory which our neurons can then fire off in random patterns to generate thoughts. More thoughts are not neccessarily a good thing though, as thoughts would increase by exponetially...

Starting thought * Starting thought = Starting thought + Starting thought + Starting thought + Starting thought

2*2=4, then 4*4=16, 16*16= 256

 

Meaning memory would be filled up faster, and if you happen to be thinking about something useless...say curtains you now have 65536 digits to do with Curtains, compared with the 16 digits to do with curtains before. True you might discover a new type of curtain but is that really that useful?

 

I once studied what I think about and came out with the number of 1 useful thought every 10 seconds(Actually it was about 1 minute of useful thinking per ten minutes but you get the point)... So rather than my 65536 folders of usefulness I would have 4294967296 digits of usefulness and 42949672960 digits of irrelevant rubbish being created every 10 seconds.

 

So I for one don't like this idea...It sounds like taking a bad egg and trying to make a souffle out of it in the hopes it will taste better. Or giving a chainsaw to a beaver.

 

Huh?

 

Did you study this or are you just hypothesizing?

[archimage_a]

Little of both actually.

 

Last year(uni how wonderful) I was doing a study on how people access information. It turns out people will access the same information over and over again because they don't store the information, and as such they recieved high marks and were able to work for much longer periods without becoming bored(By bored I mean headaches, staring blankly into space, ect). Other people, who didn't access the same information over and over again, also recieved similiar marks but were only able to work for about an hour or so at a time. Strangely though the second group took less time(actually working) than the first group, which seems to indicate that they were working at a higher level for shorter periods of time.

The both groups had a test(about a week later) and the second group scored higher than the first group.

 

Thus determining that infomation, when stored, expands over the course of time as new information is added to it by thougt processes.

Where as, if it is not stored, it is merely being worked on, it does not accumulate, only trimmings are gleaned from it.

 

Thus I experimented with my own thought processes using a simple mathematically set of equations, worked out entirely in my head, and discovered that I was able to do them, and remember most of the numbers the next day. When I repeated the experiment(Differernt equation) with a peice of paper and a pen though I did them much faster but couldn't remember half as many numbers an hour later, let alone the next day.

Obvouisly it is a slightly unfair test given that I was the person in it, but given that no one was willing to take part unless I explained it, which invalidated the test it was my only real option.

 

Anyway the simple conclusion is that the more going on in your head, the more information is stored and the tirered you become doing it.

Thus making people more capable of processing information leads to more information being stored and people being yet tirered.

There may be long term benefits to it, but in the short term the ability to process things in your head(smartness) provides only slight benefit at the expense of additional energy being expended.

[Sam]

Little of both actually.

 

Last year(uni how wonderful) I was doing a study on how people access information. It turns out people will access the same information over and over again because they don't store the information, and as such they recieved high marks and were able to work for much longer periods without becoming bored(By bored I mean headaches, staring blankly into space, ect). Other people, who didn't access the same information over and over again, also recieved similiar marks but were only able to work for about an hour or so at a time. Strangely though the second group took less time(actually working) than the first group, which seems to indicate that they were working at a higher level for shorter periods of time.

The both groups had a test(about a week later) and the second group scored higher than the first group.

 

Thus determining that infomation, when stored, expands over the course of time as new information is added to it by thougt processes.

Where as, if it is not stored, it is merely being worked on, it does not accumulate, only trimmings are gleaned from it.

 

Thus I experimented with my own thought processes using a simple mathematically set of equations, worked out entirely in my head, and discovered that I was able to do them, and remember most of the numbers the next day. When I repeated the experiment(Differernt equation) with a peice of paper and a pen though I did them much faster but couldn't remember half as many numbers an hour later, let alone the next day.

Obvouisly it is a slightly unfair test given that I was the person in it, but given that no one was willing to take part unless I explained it, which invalidated the test it was my only real option.

 

Anyway the simple conclusion is that the more going on in your head, the more information is stored and the tirered you become doing it.

Thus making people more capable of processing information leads to more information being stored and people being yet tirered.

There may be long term benefits to it, but in the short term the ability to process things in your head(smartness) provides only slight benefit at the expense of additional energy being expended.

 

 

That's very interesting, all the more reason to revise repeatedly for exams then!