Slate reviews 'Planet of the Apes'-style research into brain boosting

James Hughes, the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, is featured in Slate's article, Think Faster: A review of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes-style research into brain boosting:

In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, James Franco plays a scientist who discovers a genetic engineering treatment, delivered via virus, that prompts the brain to repair itself in the sick and boosts brain power beyond base line in the healthy (at least, in healthy apes). In the real world, though, that sort of therapy is still relegated to mouse experimentation. According to James Hughes, the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, genetic therapy is still a field with more promise than successes. It can be dangerous, as is portrayed in the Apes prequel: In 1999, Jesse Gelsinger, an 18-year-old who suffered from a rare metabolic disorder, died as a result of a gene-therapy trial, and the field is still grappling with that failure.

Brain-computer interfaces, such as implants or "hook-ups," represent an alternative path for neuroenhancement. Linking your brain to a computer chip may conjure up sci-fi nightmares of a USB slot behind your ear, but it's not quite that far-fetched: Technically, the cochlear implants that allow some hearing-impaired or deaf people to hear in a limited fashion are brain-computer interfaces, as Greely points out. But Hughes speculates that brain-computer interfaces for better cognitive skills are probably at least 30 or 40 years out. "Even if we don't have nanobots in your head, we might have simpler ways of, and perhaps noninvasive ways, of hooking the brain up to external media and doing things we can't quite imagine yet," he says.

So any blockbuster neuroenhancer is still in the lab, or just a twinkle in a scientist's eye, at the moment. But those in the field are already preparing for the ethical and societal ramifications. Some, like Greely, urge the public—and physicians—not to be too squeamish about giving healthy brains a little boost. "In a world in which human work spans and life spans are increasing, cognitive enhancement tools—including the pharmacological—will be increasingly useful for improve quality of life and extended work productivity, as well as to stave off normal pathological age-related cognitive declines," he and colleagues argued in a 2008 Nature commentary.

Humanity+ @ Parsons recap: Beyond enhancement

Just got back from New York City where I attended the Humanity+ @ Parsons conference on May 14th and 15th. I always have a great time at these events, and this conference was no exception.

I'll be writing about the conference over the coming days and weeks, but I will say that it was interesting to see all the emphasis paid not to enhancement per se, but to alternative forms of human re-design and modification. Kinda makes sense if you think about it: it was a design-meets-transhumanism conference after all. But that said, I'm left wondering if it's part of a broader trend.

Transhumanists, it would seem, are not as purely fixated on augmentation as they used to be; it’s becoming more than just about being smarter, faster, or stronger. It’s also about acquiring novel capacities and being able to experience different things.

One thing I did observe, however, was that it was the transhumanists and not the designers who emphasized these points. I am surprised at how little consideration designers, architects and artists still give to the idea of human re-engineering. They're still largely fixated on externalities—things interface design, user experience, and environmental factors.

Now, there's nothing necessarily wrong with these things, but we need to also consider making meaningful alterations to the human body and mind as well. As I said during my talk on designer psychologies, it's time to start changing our minds and bodies to suit our environment and technologies rather than the other way around.

Fundamentally, a lot of this reluctance (or just sheer ignorance) has to do with the design community's adoption of an academic posthumanism that's rooted in postmodernist thinking (I will elaborate on this in a future post). This is contrasted with the transhumanist take on posthumanism which is driven by secular Humanist and Enlightenment ideals.

So, as noted, a number of transhumanists addressed the issue of human modification and re-design outside the context of mere enhancement.

Artificial intelligence theorist Ben Goertzel argued that, as we work to create AGI (artificial general intelligence), we'll have to create minds that can interpret and navigate through specific modal environments. Goertzel was addressing synthetic minds, but his point could be applied to humans as well. It made me wonder if we will someday be able to significantly modify human experience as it relates to environmental context.

Neuroscientist Anders Sandberg talked about the advent of novel capacities (such as new senses) that have no objective or easily distinguishable purpose. He gave the example of Todd Huffman's magnetic fingers which allow him to sense magnetic fields. Sandberg likened this to the body modification community. Modification can be done strictly for the sake of it, or just for personal experimentation. Sometimes it’s worth trying something weird or different just to see what happens; there isn't necessarily a problem to be solved. And at the very least it provides a fascinating outlet for human creativity and expression.

Similarly, bio-artist Adam Zaretsky made the claim that we should be more adventurous and imaginative when it comes to augmentation. While his ethics were at times suspicious (he seemed to believe that we can modify and hybridize nonhuman animals indiscriminately), his argument that we should think of biology as both our medium and canvas struck a few chords with conference attendees. Zaretsky's flesh fetish and resultant shock art showed that the potential for out-of-the-box modifications is significant and bizarre, but that it can only be explored given more daring (and an apparent love of icky things). He put it aptly when he said, "Humanity is nature in drag."

Bioethicist James Hughes had a unique take on things with his talk on building resilient minds. While I would agree that this could be classified as a kind of enhancement, the types of cognitive changes that he talked about were fairly fungible and context specific. It seemed more alt-transhumanism to me when compared to traditional discussions about increased memories, enhanced intelligence, and so on. Perhaps Hughes's most interesting suggestion was that we should be able to alter our brain state to match our situation or predicament; we would essentially be changing our natures on the fly in order to cope and adapt. Very post 9/11 transhumanism.

And as for my talk on designer psychologies, I basically argued in favour of creating alternative minds. By using autism as an example, I demonstrated that there is tremendous value and potential through increased neurodiversity, and that we, as neurotypicals, need to be careful about labeling these different kinds of thinking as being pathological. While I agree that some conditions are worthy of such distinctions, we need to be open minded to the possibility that alternative psychologies have an intrinsic value that can yield novel experiences and, as a result, create entirely new expressions, insights and experience (I'll publish my entire talk a bit later).

Now, as the transhumanist diehards are inclined to remind me, much of this isn’t really anything new. Transhumanists have been talking about body modification, alternative minds and novel capacities since day one. But it was nice to see such consensus at the same conference—a strong indication that these ideas are gaining currency and becoming a larger part of the conversation. It’s good to see more lateral thinking when it comes to considering new capacities and the motives behind our desires to reshape the human condition.

Matt Lamkin says a ban on cognitive enhancers is not cool

Lawyer and bioethicist Matt Lamkin makes the case that a ban on brain-boosters is not the answer:

While rates of drinking among college students have been relatively steady in recent years, nontherapeutic use of prescription drugs has soared—now second only to marijuana as a form of illicit drug use. Research by Alan D. DeSantis, a professor of communication at the University of Kentucky who has studied ADHD-stimulant use in fraternities, suggests that 34 percent of the university's undergraduates have used stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall as study aids. According to DeSantis, that number rises the longer students are in college, and nearly 60 percent of Kentucky's juniors and seniors have used "neuroenhancers."

Concerned observers of this trend, most notably at Britain's Academy of Medical Sciences, have characterized the use of "study drugs" as a form of cheating, akin to the use of steroids in sports. Having diagnosed the problem as an issue of unfair competition, the academy has called on universities to consider banning the use of cognition-enhancing drugs by healthy students. This past October, Wesleyan University did just that, amending its student code of conduct to recognize "misuse" of prescription drugs as a violation of the college's prohibition against receiving "improper assistance" in completing academic work.

He concludes:

[C]olleges need to encourage students to engage in the practice of education rather than to seek shortcuts. Instead of ferreting out and punishing students, universities should focus on restoring a culture of deep engagement in education, rather than just competition for credentials...

...If universities instead choose to enact blanket prohibitions on the use of study drugs by healthy students, it would be more sensible to enforce such a policy through honor codes than through measures such as urine testing, as the Academy of Medical Sciences has proposed. Unlike a policing approach, honor codes ask students to internalize values that are important to education and to character in general. Although students who violate honor codes face sanctions, the primary aim is not to deter improper conduct with threats, but to persuade students that to breach the code is to betray themselves. If colleges believe that enhancing cognition with drugs deprives students of the true value of education, they must encourage students to adopt that value as their own.

SEED Magazine on cognitive enhancement through 'adaptive harnessing'

The next giant leap in human evolution may not come from fields like genetic engineering or artificial intelligence, argues SEED's Mark Changizi, but rather from appreciating our ancient brains:

The root of these misconceptions is the radical underappreciation of the design engineered by natural selection into the powers implemented by our bodies and brains, something central to my 2009 book, The Vision Revolution. For example, optical illusions (such as the Hering) are not examples of the brain’s poor hardware design, but, rather, consequences of intricate evolutionary software for generating perceptions that correct for neural latencies in normal circumstances. And our peculiar variety of color vision, with two of our sensory cones having sensitivity to nearly the same part of the spectrum, is not an accidental mutation that merely stuck around, but, rather, appear to function with the signature of hemoglobin physiology in mind, so as to detect the color signals primates display on their faces and rumps.

These and other inborn capabilities we take for granted are not kluges, they’re not “good enough,” and they’re more than merely smart. They’re astronomically brilliant in comparison to anything humans are likely to invent for millennia.

Neuronal recycling exploits this wellspring of potent powers. If one wants to get a human brain to do task Y despite it not having evolved to efficiently carry out task Y, then a key point is not to forcefully twist the brain to do Y. Like all animal brains, human brains are not general-purpose universal learning machines, but, instead, are intricately structured suites of instincts optimized for the environments in which they evolved. To harness our brains, we want to let the brain’s brilliant mechanisms run as intended—i.e., not to be twisted. Rather, the strategy is to twist Y into a shape that the brain does know how to process.

But how do I know this is feasible? This tactic may use the immensely powerful gifts that natural selection gave us, but what if harnessing these powers is currently far beyond us? How do we find the right innate power for any given task? And how are we to know how to adapt that task so as to be just right for the human brain’s inflexible mechanisms?

I don’t want to pretend that answers to these questions are easy—they are not. Nevertheless, there is a very good reason to be optimistic that the next stage of human will come via the form of adaptive harnessing, rather than direct technological enhancement: It has already happened.

Changizi is clearly on to something. Reworking the brain to increase efficiency, boost its powers, and give it novel capacities is a sound idea. But why oh why do so many specialists like Changizi ignore the impact of converging technologies? Adaptive harnessing will most likely be done in concert with other types of cognitive enhancements, including genetic, pharmaceutical, and artificial intelligent applications. And it's not as far off as he'd have us believe.

More on "Humans, Version 3.0."

Don Tapscott: Designing your mind

Says Don Tapscott:

The existence of lifelong neuroplasticity is no longer in doubt. The brain runs on a "use it or lose it" motto. So could we "use it to build it right?" Surely if we are proactive, the demands of our information rich, multi-stimuli, fast paced, multitasking, digital existence can be shaped to our advantage. In fact, psychiatrist Dr. Stan Kutcher, an expert on adolescent mental health who has studied the effect of digital technology on brain development, says "There is emerging evidence suggesting that exposure to new technologies may push the Net Generation brain past conventional capacity limitations."

My own research suggests that when the straight A student is doing her homework at the same time as five other things online she is not actually multitasking. Rather she has developed a better active working memory and better switching abilities. Personally I can't read my email and listen to iTunes at the same time, but she can. She has a brain more appropriate to the demands of the digital age than I do.

How could we use design thinking to change the way we think? Good design typically begins with some principles and functional objectives.

Read more.

Cognitive enhancers increasingly being used by athletes

The Practical Ethics blog alerted me to this NY Daily News article: Baseball turns its attention to Adderall as analysis shows more players gaining exemptions for ADD:

Thirteen players tested positive for the amphetamine-based drug Adderall in the past season, and 105 were granted exemptions for attention deficit disorder, for which Adderall is frequently prescribed. The exemptions excuse players in advance for banned substances they take on doctor's orders.

The numbers, published in the third annual report of the league's drug program administrator, roughly mirrored those of the previous two seasons. There were 106 ADD exemptions in 2008, and 108 in 2009. That represents about 10% of MLB players, suggesting that the big leagues either have a disproportionately high number of distractible players, or that taking amphetamine-based drugs remains a popular method of staying alert during a long and grueling season.

It's very likely, of course, that baseball players are exploting a loophole so that they can use Adderall for its stimulant properties. This kind of off-label use is exploding in the general population, so it should come as no surprise that athletes are also tuning in.

So, is it cheating? What about caffeine, which is another stimulant? And what about students who are using Adderall in droves? Are they cheating, too? If it's being used in general everyday life, why can't it be used in sports? Are we creating an artificial dichotomy between real life and the theater of sports?

On this topic, I highly recommend this Nature piece from 2008: Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy.

Katherine Drabiak-Syed: "Reining in the Psychopharmacological Enhancement Train" [transforming humanity conference]

Katherine Drabiak-Syed presenting "Reining in the Psychopharmacological Enhancement Train."

Off-label use of drugs like Modafinil is an increasing problem. The misappropriate of use for these drugs endangers the user. But the pressure for enhancement is ingrained. Our future population may be stuck in overdrive.

As the military  has shown, use of these sorts of stimulants is starting to become a job requirement. [What about truck drivers?] Modafinil has not been FDA approved for these sorts of stimulant off-label use purposes. It is not indicated for use for healthy individuals. The drug will produce side-effects, including some psychiatric problems. And then there's the whole issue of acquired dependancy.

Physicians are thus putting their patients at risk when prescribing these sorts of drugs for off-label use purposes. They should be working to alleviate recognized conditions, and not acquiescing to the lifestyle desires of their patient.

People have fallen prey to the rat-race mentality of society in their quest to be super productive.

Gavin Enck: "Cognitive Enhancers, Students, and Virtues" [CFI conference on biomedical enhancements]

Is using cognitive enhancers at school cheating? Gavin Enck argues that it's not cheating, but that it's unfair. He uses two primary arguments: 

1. Problem of moral luck
2. Intellectual or moral virtues

Is there any difference between cognitive enhancers and, say, laptops? Or coffee? The difference of degree is what's important. And the qualitative boost is lower relative to Adderall and Provigil. Similarly, the laptop does not impact on the 'person' to the degree that a neuropharmaceutical does. 

Enck analogizes the competitiveness in sports to competitiveness in academia. He asks, is there an intentional violation of the rules, fairness? He argues yes, that the student is deliberately seeking an unfair advantage, but is not explicitly cheating. 

[Enck has a very restrictive and strange definition of cognitive enhancement, one that greatly constrains (and even confuses) the scope of 'permissibility.'] 

He also argues that the student with socio-economic advantages will have greater accessibility to cognitive enhancers, which leads to greater unfairness. Same can be said for an academically-supportive network, but it would be ludicrous to say that the student has an unfair advantage. So again, the degree matters to Enck.

Enck talks about a virtues based approach. Some intellectual virtues are a moral good; seeking academic achievement is a moral good unto itself. In other words, we value (and reward) those who work hard at their academic goals. We value those efforts that seek true beliefs. 

[Enck fails to note that the student on cognitive enhancers (a) may be working as hard as the student not on enhances and (2) is any less dedicated to seeking true beliefs.]

Virtues are not the kinds of things that require chemical assistance. Seeking true beliefs does not require enhancement. 

Q&A

Why does chemical enhancement make a virtuous act less virtuous? Enck argues that it matters within the context of academia -- because it's a competitive environment. 

Savulescu: Bioenhancement of math skills is ethically important

Julian Savulescu makes the case that the bioenhancement of mathematical ability is ethically important:

Kadosh and colleagues highlight the importance of enhancing ability with numbers. Around 20% of normal people have trouble with numbers. They write, “The negative impact of numerical difficulties on everyday life is manifested in the lack of progress in education, increased unemployment, reduced salary and job opportunities, and additional costs in mental and physical health.”

Such research is obviously important for the prospect of such people with poor numeracy. It shows the importance of advances in the biosciences and neurosciences for increasing the opportunities and well-being of normal people who fall at the lower end of the normal distribution curve of abilities.

But such research is important for at least two other reasons. Anders Sandberg has argued that having a sense of proportion and numeracy are more important to energy savings than having espoused green ethical commitments. Mathematical ability can have important general social effects.

Secondly, even those at the top end of mathematical ability might benefit from enhancement. If one takes those people in the top 1% of the population of IQ, the top quarter of that top 1% produce more than twice as many patents as the bottom quarter. So even if you are in the top 1%, enhancing your IQ might enhance your creativity and inventiveness. Kadosh and colleagues begin their article, “Dalton, Keynes, Gauss, Newton, Einstein, and Turing are only a few examples of people who have advanced the quality of human life and knowledge through their exceptional numerical abilities.” But if we were to enhance the ability of such geniuses by even a tiny per cent, problems would be solved that would otherwise be unlikely to be solved. Tiny improvements have great effect over large numbers of people over significant periods of time. An important problem that has remained unsolved or unrecognized could be solved. It is important to recognize that cognitive enhancement is an important social and economic issue.

More.

Should we say yes to cognition enhancing drugs?

Gary Miller's paper in the Journal of Philosophy, Science and Law is worth checking out: Cognition Enhancing Drugs: Just Say Yes?

My goal is not, however, to persuade that cognition-enhancement is “good” or “bad” or “moral” or “immoral.” Nor is my goal to advocate policy change. Instead, thinking pragmatically about the ways other unconventional utilitarian initiatives have gained traction, my aim is to persuade academics and policy advocates that if their efforts to prompt change in regard to this issue are ever to succeed, they must first take account of the human cognitive flaws and motivational biases that may well lead a majority of the public to reject such a prospect. I argue that, regardless how miniscule the risks or how blatantly obvious the benefits, a majority of U.S. citizens is unlikely to support the unrestricted dissemination of cognition enhancing drugs, because each individual member of the majority will be led astray by cognitive biases and illusions, as well as logical fallacies.

If this premise is accurate, then the people of the United States may already be suffering an opportunity cost that cannot be recouped. While a minority of the U.S. electorate can challenge the constitutionality of a policy enacted by a majority, a minority cannot sue to challenge the legislature’s refusal to enact a specific policy. In other words, we in the minority have no way of claiming we were harmed by what “good” could have come—but did not come—due to the legislature’s inaction. We cannot claim the “opportunity cost to the greater good” as an injury, and we cannot compel a court to balance that opportunity cost of inaction against the individual interests that dissuaded the majority from action. Our only recourse is to compel the majority to change its stance via persuasion.

In Part I of this article, I will set out a descriptive account of human morality and rationality in order to explain why advocacy for cognition enhancement is met with moral indignation. Then, in Part II, I will discuss how a better understanding of human cognitive deficits sheds new light on the best strategies for persuading irrationally indignant opponents of utilitarian initiatives. The method of persuasion I will present is a form of moral entrepreneurism modeled on Cass Sunstein’s “libertarian paternalism” and further informed by evolutionary theories of morality, as well as empirical research on legal legitimacy, compliance, and the logic of social reciprocity.

Creatine improves working memory and general intelligence

This study goes back to 2003, but it's good to know, particularly if you're vegetarian or vegan:

Research undertaken by scientists at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University in Australia has shown that taking creatine, a compound found in muscle tissue, as a dietary supplement can give a significant boost to both working memory and general intelligence. The work, to be published in a forthcoming Proceedings B, a learned journal published by the Royal Society, monitored the effect of creatine supplementation on 45 young adult vegetarian subjects in a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment.

Greely on enhancing brains: What are we afraid of?

Back in 2008, Henry T. Greely, a professor at Stanford Law School, contributed to a Nature commentary (PDF) in which he concluded that "safe and effective cognitive enhancers will benefit both the individual and society.” These days Greely is hoping we can take it a step further and hopes that, instead of banning cognitive enhancements, we start to determine the rules for their use. Addressing his critics, Greely writes,

There are at least three unsound reasons for concern: cheating, solidarity, and naturalness.

Many people find the assertion that enhancement is cheating to be convincing. Sometimes it is: If rules or laws ban an enhancement, then using it is cheating. But that does not help in situations where there are no rules or the rules are still being determined. The problem with viewing enhancements as cheating is that enhancements, broadly defined, are ubiquitous. If taking a cognitive-enhancement drug before a college entrance exam is cheating, what about taking a prep course? Using a computer program for test preparation? Reading a book about taking the test? Drinking a cup of coffee the morning of the test? Getting a good night’s sleep before the test? To say that direct brain enhancement is inherently cheating is to require a standard of what the “right” competition is. What would be the generally accepted standard in our complex and only somewhat meritocratic society?

The idea of enhancement as cheating is also related to the idea that enhancement replaces effort. Yet the plausible cognitive enhancements would not eliminate the need to study; they would just make studying more effective. In any event, we do not reward effort, we reward success. People with naturally good memories have advantages over others in organic chemistry exams, but they did not work for that good memory.

Some argue that enhancement is unnatural and threatens to take us beyond our humanity. This argument, too, suffers from a major problem. All of our civilization is unnatural. A fair speaker could not fly across a continent, take a taxi to an air-conditioned auditorium, and give a microphone-assisted PowerPoint presentation decrying enhancement as unnatural without either a sense of humor or a good argument for why these enhancements are different. Because they change our physical bodies? So do medicine, good food, clothing, and a hundred other unnatural changes. Because they change our brains? So does education. What argument justifies drawing the line here and not there? A strong naturalness argument against direct brain enhancements, in particular, has not been—and I think cannot be—made. Humans have constantly been changing our world and ourselves, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. A golden age of unenhanced naturalness is a myth, not an argument.

Link.

Thinking faster by altering your perception of time - A SentDev Classic

This article from April 3, 2006 was inspired by the work of David Eagleman who will be guest blogging here next week.

People who undergo extreme short-term psychological stress often claim that time slowed down for them during the experience. Traumatic events like car accidents or lengthy falls often appear in slow motion to the person experiencing it.

Is this just a recall error? Or are people literally experiencing these events at an altered subjective time rate? If so, how could such a psychological phenomenon be accounted for? Obviously, time is not really slowing down -- but something is happening to the psychological interpretation of time.

One possible answer is to compare the human brain's "clockspeed" to that of a computer's. Some scientists now suspect that slowed time elapsement is an evolved defence mechanism similar to our fight-or-flight response. When time appears to have slowed down, we have more subjective time in which to deal with a crisis situation. Put another way, extreme stress helps us to think faster.

One scientist looking into this phenomenon is David Eagleman from the University of Texas at Houston. At his 'Laboratory for Perception and Action' Eagleman is attempting to understand the neural mechanisms of time perception. His team combines psychophysical, behavioural, and computational approaches to address the relationship between the timing of perception and the timing of neural signals.

At the experimental level, Eagleman is engaged in exploring temporal encoding, time warping, manipulations of the perception of causality, and time perception in high-adrenaline situations. Ultimately, he hopes to use this data to explore how neural signals processed by different brain regions come together for a temporally unified picture of the world.

In one of his experiments, Eagleman had volunteers perform a backwards bungee jump freefall while he transmitted a rapid succession of numbers to an LED on their wrists. He found that during the fall they were successfully able to read the numbers, which under normal conditions would have appeared too fast. [I have to say, that is one of the most interesting and original experiments I've heard of in quite time some]

Thinking about Eagleman's research at a practical level, it is thought that a better understanding of these mechanisms will result in interventions that will help people process information at higher rates. This kind of 'think faster' augmentation would slow time down in a subjective sense, which would enable an individual to operate at a higher level of cognitive efficiency.

This theme has been explored in a number of science fiction stories. In Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune, the ghola Miles Teg was able to engage in extremely fast physical combat due to his ability to rapidly process information. Teg was able to subjectively experience time in extreme slow motion. Similarly, Neo in The Matrix was able to dodge bullets by altering his perception of time elapsement. And in Greg Egan's Diaspora, uploaded posthumans had to drastically slow down their internal clockspeeds when conversing with biological humans; clockspeeds in the real world varied dramatically from the clockspeed utilized in supercomputer 'polises.' Also in Diaspora, a group of posthumans altered their perception of time to such a slow rate that they could perceive the rising and fallings of geological structures such as mountains.

Here in the real world, such neural enhancements are rare, but not entirely impossible. It is thought, for example, that hockey ultrastar Wayne Gretzky was able to perceive the flow of the game at a slower pace than his competitors, giving him more subjective time to plan his attack. This may in fact be the case. At the height of his career, Gretzky was not just a 'little better' than other players, he was dominating to a degree never before seen in sport, breaking records by extreme margins. And this from a player who was physically unremarkable--in fact, below average.

Just what kinds of interventions could enable humans to 'warp time' is a topic of some speculation. A recent Discover article titled "The Mind in Overdrive" offers some possible solutions. Psychotropic substances are one possible answer, as drugs like cocaine and amphetamines have been known to alter subjective time for users. Also, meditating Buddhist monks claim to be able to perceive time differently; through their mental discipline, they may be recreating the same effect that Eagleman is documenting.

I'm certainly hoping that something like this will eventually become accessible. It will be interesting to see how much more productive and "aware" one might be with the benefit of these sorts of interventions. It may even create an alternative sense of subjective reality.

And it would surely come in handy the next time you need to dodge bullets.

Improve your performance with energy drinks

I've started to do something I once swore I'd never do: I'm hittin' the energy drinks.

I realize it's not the healthiest habit in the world, but this stuff works. And it's solved my afternoon drowsiness problem -- a time of day when I desperately need to be sharp and alert.

You've likely seen these products on store shelves and advertised as sports or health drinks. Popular brands include Red Bull, Rockstar, Monster and Amp energy drinks. They typically come in 250ml and 500ml varieties, but you can also get them as shots, such as the 5 Hour Energy Drink.

I'm actually quite amazed at how well these drinks work. As someone who routinely looks for an enhancement edge, I have to admit that energy drinks deliver. The beneficial effects that these beverages induce aren't just placebo; a growing body of clinical evidence supports the claim that energy drinks have a positive impact on both physiological and psychological performance.

So, if you're looking to improve your alertness and mental acuity when you need it, you may want to consider energy drinks. Just make sure you don't over do it.

Positive and negative effects of energy drinks

Energy drinks, which are typically laden with caffeine, taurine, ginseng and guarana, can improve mental and cognitive performance as well as increase subjective alertness. I can certainly vouch for these effects; after one drink I almost immediately feel the drowsiness dissipate. My mood is given a bit of a lift and I can re-focus on the task at hand.

Clearly, the benefits of these drinks can be applied across many different areas. For those who spend a lot of time behind the wheel, for example, these beverages can improve driving performance in the form of reduced lane drifting and increased reaction times.

Physically, they can increase upper body muscle endurance, which, in addition to an apparent 'energy boost' (which I think is actually just subjective clarity and mild euphoria) has contributed to its prevalent use in gym culture.

The effects of taurine in particular is fascinating. It's an organic acid that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier and is responsible for a wide array of physiological phenomena including inhibitory neurotransmission, membrane stabilization and the prevention of oxidative stress induced by exercise. Taurine also acts as an antioxidant and protects against toxicity of various substances (such as lead and cadmium).

On the negative side, excess consumption can induce mild to moderate euphoria (which may or may not be a bad thing) that is primarily caused by the stimulant properties of caffeine and sugar. Energy drinks can also cause agitation, anxiety, irritability and insomnia. Energy drinks have been linked with reports of nausea, abnormal heart rhythms and emergency room visits.

There have even been deaths attributed to energy drinks, but these cases have typically involved severe over-use and are complicated by other factors.

Growing popularity of energy drinks

I have been very strict about my usage. I limit myself to one 250ml sugar free drink per day. It gets me through the afternoon and it has a positive impact on my productivity.

And I'm not alone. It has become very common for students to consume energy drinks to increase their concentration as they study throughout the night, leading some to suggest that energy drinks are the coffee of a new generation.

Usage is through the roof. According to a 2008 report by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 1.5 billion cans of Red Bull were sold in the United States in 2004. Consumption in Canada is comparable and it is a growing trend for 18-to 24-year-olds.

And this market segment is broadening as younger children are beginning to consume these drinks before engaging in physical activity (it doesn't help that the manufacturers are targeting young people, including the Cocaine Energy Drink). Unfortunately, this isn't such a good idea; energy drinks don't hydrate the body efficiently because they have too much sugar, while the caffeine doesn't necessarily improve physical performance. In fact, high quantities can increase the risks of fatigue and dehydration.

Moderation and common sense

My advice is to minimize usage and only use it for specific applications. And don't get into the habit of mixing it with alcohol (or drugs) as the combined effects will work over-time to dehydrate your body. Worse, you'll likely end up drinking more because you feel so good and alert.

Like any good thing in life, moderation is the key. Avoid energy drinks altogether if you can. For me, it's solved a problem and I haven't noticed any detrimental side effects. I'll continue to consume these drinks until I feel they're no longer serving a purpose or they start to impact negatively on my health.

And in the meantime I'll enjoy these drinks and the benefits that they bring.

Andy Clark: Supersizing the Mind

There's a new book by Andy Clark worth checking out: Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action and Cognitive Extension. This will be of interest to readers of this blog in that it's a discussion of the so-called "extended mind."

Description:

When historian Charles Weiner found pages of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's notes, he saw it as a "record" of Feynman's work. Feynman himself, however, insisted that the notes were not a record but the work itself. In Supersizing the Mind , Andy Clark argues that our thinking doesn't happen only in our heads but that "certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world." The pen and paper of Feynman's thought are just such feedback loops, physical machinery that shape the flow of thought and enlarge the boundaries of mind. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than "brain-bound." The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.

Be sure to read Jerry Fodor's review from the London Review of Books and David Chalmer's comments.

Chocolate, wine and tea improve cognitive performance

Via Science Daily:

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.

The latest findings seem to support the theory, although the researchers caution that more research would be needed to prove that it was flavonoids, rather than some other aspect of the foods studied, that made the difference.The effect was most pronounced for wine.

However, say the researchers, those overdoing it...should note that while moderate alcohol consumption is associated with better cognitive function and reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, heavy alcohol intake could be one of many causes of dementia – as well as a host of other health problems.

Sandberg: It's safer to be smart

Neuroscientist Anders Sandberg chimes in on the cognitive enhancement debate and notes that intelligence has its privileges:

A fun reference I found last week is IQ in early adulthood and later risk of death by homicide: cohort study of 1 million men, which demonstrates that among swedish males having intelligence above average reduces the risk of being murdered to 27% of the risk among the lower 11%. Why this is so is a bit unclear, but clearly intelligence is health promoting. It reduces injuries and bad driving too.

Just as an aside, high IQ has also been linked to vegetarianism.

Should drugs be used to enhance memory and concentration?

Technology Review wonders if we should use brain boosters. Their article is in reaction to a recent Nature commentary, "Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy." The position statement was written by a group of ethicists, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists who are making the case that "cognitive enhancement, unlike enhancement for sports competitions, could lead to substantive improvements in the world."

Michael Gazzaniga, director of the Sage Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and one of the authors of the commentary, provides this great quote:

"All new technologies are at first resisted, even the typewriter. When changing mental states, people get antsy, especially when it appears to enhance capacity. There is somehow a sense one is cheating the system. Well, so is chemotherapy. When all of these new technologies are used in moderation and the right social context, they are a good."

Entire article.