
Toward a Pill That Helps Us Learn as Fast as Kids - coltr
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/toward-a-pill-that-helps-us-learn-as-fast-as-kids/359757/
======
tomstokes
Before anyone considers experimenting with Donepezil or other
acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in hopes of enhancing their learning, it
should be noted that there are plenty of unknowns and a few serious concerns
around altering the cholinesterase levels of otherwise healthy adults.

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](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.

~~~
auctiontheory
Don't give up - there is help. Reach out to your local chapter of
Sesquipedalians Anonymous.

~~~
Thasc
Out of curiosity, what simpler term would you instead use for
'acetylcholinesterase inhibitor'?

~~~
auctiontheory
I don't have one. In fact, I appreciate the precise technical explanation. I
guess I just needed to be reminded that humor is wasted on HN.

------
b6
> children younger than about 7 can pick up new skills, like language and
> music, much faster than adults can.

I don't think this is true. I think a determined adult learns faster.

~~~
catshirt
i'm having a hard time sourcing either side of the argument, but kids learn a
ton of shit.

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.

~~~
aaren
On the other hand, children have little else to do but absorb new information
and they take a good number of years doing it. Adults have a load of
responsibilities that they have to occupy their minds with. Compared to the
carefree oblivion of childhood I think it is remarkable that adults can learn
anything new at all.

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.

~~~
Dewie
Do all kids really have such vast amounts of free time in their childhood, or
is that heavily dependent on the culture? I can imagine that a lot of kids
have had to work and take on responsibilities at a very young age (though I
don't know if they had to do that at the so-called sponge brain age).

~~~
barry-cotter
Unless you've found some telepaths all children learn language by constant
massive exposure. Outside of multilingual societies it'll all be in the same
language too. Modern hunyer-gatherers spend ~4 hours a day doing what we'd
recognise as work and this is after agricultural civilisation took all the
good land. Civilisation is evolutionarily very recent. And humans have
extremely long childhood period to learn probably.

Don't confuse schooling with education/learning.

------
revelation
_Donepezil is a cholinesterase inhibitor, meaning it increases the amount of
acetylcholine circulating around nerve endings._

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.

~~~
derefr
If I recall, isn't _caffeine_ (effectively) an cholinesterase inhibitor?

~~~
jey
No, it's primarily an adenosine antagonist.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Mechanism_of_action](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Mechanism_of_action)

~~~
derefr
Right, that's why I said "effectively": caffeine inhibits adenosine from
inhibiting cholinesterase (which itself inhibits acetylcholine.) Isn't biology
fun?

~~~
jey
That may be true, but the difference is that caffeine doesn't inhibit
cholinesterase across the board.

------
sanxiyn
In reinforcement learning, you are supposed to have large learning rate at the
beginning and smaller and smaller learning rate as you go, eventually reaching
zero. It would make sense for brain to use similar strategy.

In unusual cases temporarily tweaking learning rate can be profitable, and it
could apply to brain too.

~~~
wyager
>large learning rate at the beginning and smaller and smaller learning rate as
you go, eventually reaching zero. It would make sense for brain to use similar
strategy.

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.

------
sizzle
*neural pathways

------
hydralist
take molly

~~~
arthurcolle
Can you leave Hacker News? Thanks

~~~
dang
We ban people who personally attack other users. Your comment was worse than
the one you replied to.

~~~
arthurcolle
Is this a warning or am I hellbanned? I apologize for violating the rules but
for what it's worth I was annoyed at the comment and didn't think to ignore
it. I'd appreciate hearing back the verdict if so. I regret the comment.

------
mck-
Limitless. Go watch it if you haven't

~~~
patriciawright
Limitless was based on Modafinil (a real-life nootropic you buy). You can read
more about it here: [http://www.brightjourney.com/q/physical-hacks-diet-
nootropic...](http://www.brightjourney.com/q/physical-hacks-diet-nootropics-
use-focused-mentally)

~~~
kranner
I asked Alan Glynn (the author of The Dark Fields / Limitless) two days ago on
twitter if he had based it on Modafinil. His reply (in a public tweet):

"Thanks - no, all made up, wrote it nearly 15 yrs ago, before I'd heard of
modafinil, certainly before the nootropic boom."

------
patriciawright
I'm always amazed how we don't look at our diets before resorting to drugs to
treat conditions.

What you eat has the largest effect on your brain chemistry.

~~~
jimmar
For amblyopia (lazy eye) mentioned in the article, diet doesn't do anything.
Diet doesn't do much for neurodegenerative disorders, either. Today, when you
get alzheimer's, it only gets worse. You can't eat a lot of blueberries and
suddenly regain brain function.

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.

~~~
patriciawright
It's not about eating a lot of fruits to suddenly regain brain function.

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.

~~~
sizzle
Yeah but once you start exhibiting the symptoms of a neurodegenerative
disorder, it's far too late for you because the damage has been taking place
for many years prior.

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.

