Dry Observer : Jolting Your Neurons to Life: Boosting Verbal and Creative Skills and Memory in the Frankenstein Tradition

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Dry Observer

Jolting Your Neurons to Life: Boosting Verbal and Creative Skills and Memory in the Frankenstein Tradition

Yes, a generation of mad scientists are standing over their field (of electroshock brain enhancement) shouting "It's alive! It's alive!" Why?

To begin with, this article from Reuters describes an experiment in which mild electrical flows were used to stimulate the brains of sleeping subjects, resulting in enhanced memory.

When they applied several currents that mimic natural slow oscillating brain waves in sleep they enhanced the memory of medical students who had done a word-learning task.

"It leads to improved memory retention," said Jan Born, a neuroscientist at the University of Luebeck.

This method could help people with memory problems as well as senile dementia caused Alzheimer's and other diseases.

If the currents were applied to the scalp during deep sleep, the first few hours of nocturnal sleep, the students recalled a greater number of words than if they had been given a sham brain stimulation.

"This is proof that this slow oscillation has a real function during sleep -- to build and consolidate memory," said Born.

"It is an eight percent increase overall. This is a striking increase," he added.

The article also notes that the medical students in question already had very good memory skills, so this effect isn't simply the result of repairing weaknesses in an underperforming brain. We're seeing an improvement of almost 1/12 over a typical subject's normal recall. That's fairly significant for such a simple technique.

And we might ask ourselves, once this method is improved and the technology refined, would unobtrusive electrodes be able to pass microcurrents through our heads whenever we need enhanced memory during the day? Also, some readers may recall this Wired article on the discovery that passing tiny electrical currents through the front of someone's head can boost verbal skills by as much as 20%.

Perhaps the best question to ask is: How many such intellect-enhancing "shortcuts" are out there? How frequently can they be (safely) applied to our brains? Could an unobtrusive electrical stimulation device simultaneously enhance our abilities in several different domains -- not just memory and verbal skills, but mathematical ability, visualization, creative talents, learning new skills, etc?

We should remember the intriguing research in cranial electro-stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation, technologies which seem to enhance creativity and/or intelligence. Some of these devices are already available to the public as affordable electronic tools. So this evolution and democratization of these technologies is already underway.

Consider: A near-perpetual, harmless and effortless means of improving human abilities could have a profound impact on the general population, especially given that many high-performing people, statistically speaking, are only small step above the average person on many tests of basic skills. People with the equivalent of a 140 I.Q. can generally work as scientists or doctors, or in low-skilled manual labor, or anywhere in between; it's their choice. People with an effective 70 I.Q. are basically stuck with the low-skilled labor jobs; there's nothing else they can master with a reasonable expenditure of effort.

This kind of technology might not make us all geniuses, but it could put whole new careers and life-opportunities within reach of millions if not billions of human beings. And that alone makes it worthy of further attention.

Future Imperative

Published Monday, November 13, 2006 7:28 PM by Dry Observer

Tags: cranial electro-stimulation, intelligence augmentation, CES, TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation

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	advancedatheist wrote on November 14, 2006 6:41 PM Currently in the U.S., plenty of high-IQ college educated people can't find work in the fields they've studied for, nor in anything else fitting their cognitive abilities. If you increase the percentage of the population with higher IQ's, you'll just exacerbate the downward pressure on the wages smart people can command in the current economy.
	Veritas wrote on November 17, 2006 1:08 PM <by advancedatheist November 14, 2006 6:41 PM Currently in the U.S., plenty of high-IQ college educated people can't find work in the fields they've studied for, nor in anything else fitting their cognitive abilities. If you increase the percentage of the population with higher IQ's, you'll just exacerbate the downward pressure on the wages smart people can command in the current economy.> In the immortal words of comic-book guy,..weakest argument ever. The advantages of an increased intelligence/creativity for the masses more than makes up for any perceived drawbacks. Would you rather have morons voting for your next president/congress/referendums, or a group of people more capable of making a wise decision? Having an augmented populace, if safe and truly effective, would only speed progress along, heralding more rapid advances in medicine, physics, engineering, ...virtually every field. If everyone were able to be advanced, there would be no net change in unemployment or real wages, people would just be able to do their jobs better (the original post mentions that the effects are evident in already 'smart' people too). The exception would be where people do their jobs more efficiently and eliminate jobs that shouldn't exist in the first place. The more intelligent and creative these unemployed people are, the easier it will be for them to find work, and succeed long-term, in other fields. The vast majority of high-IQ college educated people in the US have no trouble finding jobs either. The bulk of the unemployed are not comprised of high-IQ college educated folks, I guarantee it. And that tiny minority that do have problems often comes down to choice (don't want to relocate) or other mitigating factors (injuries, etc).
	Mr. Farlops wrote on November 18, 2006 1:43 PM I mentioned rTMS a few times on this site too. The thing is, as I last recall, Dr. Snyder's results haven't yet been verified by other researchers (Please, if someone knows more about this, let me know.) and the effect is temporary. It seems to effect narrow areas of human mental ability as well, improving our pattern recognition, short and medium term memory and verbal ability. It's as if rTMS temporarily throws us into an autistic savant state. I think what's happening here is not an enlarging of the brain's performance envelope but sacrifice of some abilities to favor others, a temporary optimization.
	Dry Observer wrote on November 19, 2006 9:57 PM Actually, I think you're right about the effect of rTMS, Mr. Farlops. Perhaps Dr. Snyder or another researcher will make that technique a little faster, easier and more effective, and without weakening other brain functions in the meantime. Or maybe not. However, by including that particular phenomena under the generalized heading of "electrical currents that can enhance your brain," I may have distracted you from the main point of the post. The other methods -- using weak currents to enhance memory or verbal skills, or CES to effect various enhancements -- _do_ seem to be clearly positive interventions, and with further refinement could be used on a much more regular basis, with potentially a far greater synergistic, even snowballing impact. I should also clarify -- I don't think these electro-magnetic manipulations are the only simple means by which human intelligence and/or specific cognitive skills can be enhanced to a significant degree. On the contrary, while I was aware of some of this research, I am actually surprised by how far it has come. But these various, independently developed technologies are symbolic of the much larger human augmentation field. There are many, many tools right now that can boost human minds, and while some have serious drawbacks -- for example, the most dangerous of "nootropic" drugs, such as Ritalin -- the question remains: If you can improve your recall by a twelfth, sharpen your verbal skills, become dramatically motivated by dose of Modafinil, and so on, at what point do you become "superhuman" in your capabilities? At what point does your company or organization become vastly more productive and powerful, as even its most mediocre members become effective geniuses? If not better? "Disclaimer": Yes, there are also a lot of potentially dangerous methods out there, like all the college students freebasing on Ritalin while cramming for tests. And there's a fair question whether some tools can seriously alter your personality -- like those folks who report being super-energized, focused and motivated by Modafinil... who also report losing interest in family and friends with no connection to their work. Even a "motivation pill" with no other side effects might be a bit too much for many people to swallow. But there's also quite a few things that seem to be relatively harmless and simple, and which could be quite readily combined. Making the first transhuman may not require AI, nanotech, cybernetics or a multi-billion-dollar budget. It may simply require putting together enough of the puzzle pieces already scattered all around us. Or to put it another way, you may not be waiting on the Singularity. The Singularity may be waiting on you.
	Dry Observer wrote on November 19, 2006 11:29 PM I understand where you're coming from, AdvancedAtheist, but I generally agree with what Veritas wrote above about intelligence and employment/opportunity. I will grant you that there are intelligent, motivated people who are unemployed -- even well-trained and/or well-educated ones. After all, sometimes whole career fields come to an abrupt end, and either employment shrinks to a tiny minority (the world's best hand-illuminator of ancient manuscripts) or simply disappears (assembly-line painters of automobiles, watching the robots do twice the job in half the time using three-quarters of the paint). But here's the thing... If human beings can be made substantially smarter overall -- nothing seemingly revolutionary, just pushing everyone a couple noticeable steps up the ladder in terms of average, overall intelligence, creativity and learning ability -- then you will swiftly see a revolutionary change in terms of economic productivity and scientific and technological progress. Imagine, your average scientists become brilliant, your well-above-average scientists become geniuses, and your genius scientists become de facto superhumans, at least within the limits of their fields. And this result is replicated in every single field of endeavor on the planet. Is it true that many jobs, career fields and even industries will speedily drop into the dustbin of history? Yes, just as we once all gave up flint-knapping. We will move on to new jobs, new technologies and new products as stunning progress ushers them in. But the vast increase in wealth made available by such changes, and tremendously enhanced human ability to cope with and take advantage of change will help people retrain for new work far faster than before. And meanwhile, smarter government, industry and NGO decisions will lead to better support for individuals in transition. Could all of the above fall apart very quickly if large numbers of people become technically skilled but become (or remain) morally bankrupt? Absolutely. Which is one reason it would be wise to consider what kinds of ethics it would be wise to propogate in society as a whole and among enhancement first-adopters in particular. But on the whole, I think uplifting as much of humanity as possible, more or less at the same time, is not only a good idea in terms of social, economic and technological progress, but also in terms of preventing an egregious concentration of immense power in the hands of some kind of self-selected elite.
	Veritas wrote on November 25, 2006 5:48 PM Well said, D.O. Far more eloquent than my reactionary verbal eyeroll. haha Another thing to consider, though, is if some method to enhance intelligence, (be it drugs, rTMS, etc) were only effective on one segment of the populace. Imagine the societal impact if it only worked (or worked better) on males or females and not the other, or only certain ethnic groups, or some genetic specifications. What would the societal implications be of such a sudden rise in one separate population in terms of mental capacity? Sounds like a good starting point for a sf novel. (ala Beggars of Spain) hmmmm....
	Dry Observer wrote on November 25, 2006 11:08 PM Veritas, I understand there is at least one male-only genetic defect (effecting perhaps a third of men, as I recall) which is controlled by a single gene. And which is therefore presumably an excellent candidate for gene therapy, which has thus far been successful in correcting single genes only. So your hypothetical quandary may crop up much sooner than you think.