Slashdot Mirror
Smarter Children Through Food Supplements
An anonymous reader writes "Baby rats (mmm...baby rats) fed a little extra choline in utero popped out with brain cells dramatically bigger and faster than pups who didn't receive the supplement. Duke University researchers say the implications are profound for humans and the future of learning."
Careful...... It should also be noted that in neurons in the hippocampus (and elsewhere), when the threshold for firing is decreased, the propensity for epileptiform discharges increases. The authors of the study claim that the neurons are bigger and fire more easily. I suppose that the ease of firing could simply be related to simple cable theory as predicted by Hodgkin and Huxley, but their explanation of increased dendritic count could also explain it nicely. However, other explanations could also be correct such as increased or upregulated glutamatergic channel count or increased receptor count.
researchers say the implications are profound for humans and the future of learning
At any rate, I regardless of the actual model, these sorts of public proclamations are troublesome as there are now going to be thousands upon thousands that will go out and start purchasing choline supplements just like their mass purchasing of melatonin (extracted from bovine pineal gland commonly, prion diseases anyone?), or ephedra (cardiac arrest anyone?), Aristolochia fangchi (kidney damage or cancer anyone?), shark cartilage (simply a lighter wallet anyone?), or any other unproven (not a troll, I am a scientist folks, so I want proof) supplement.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
What does choline come from? Is it part of our foods, so that we could eat more of some weird vegetable?
So now we get to find out if overclocking the brain
with choline will lead to nasty side effects?
I would think that some percentage of Slashdotters would understand that a child who isn't challenged by schoolwork could turn into an outcast of some sort or, worse, could refuse to do work altogether. They will think of petty homework and tasks such as character charts and subjects such as The Renaissance as beneath their intelligence. I am going through a personal hell not being able to concentrate in my classes. It's all so uesless to me. Why am I reading this book? Why am I doing this math problem? I'm a writer. I need to write freeform! Anyway, that's basically the mindset of a kid who has given up on school.
And now, for a sig that's a complete copout.
What exactly does "reduce the brain's vulnerability toxic insults." mean? Perhaps there is some biological terminology I am not familiar with... Also, how can they claim this will help effects of long term memory loss?
Well, the article just says that the baby brains are bigger than normal and the neurons seem to be firing faster, but there hasn't been any testing as to whether these guys are any smarter than the average bear (or rat). It does look interesting, but last I checked, in humans there hasn't been any correlation between hat size and IQ. Elephants and blue whales have the biggest brains on the planet, but nobody's calling them the most intellegent creatures in the world.
I remember a while back a scientist bred a mouse strain with altered NMDA receptors, which gave a pretty hefty increase in memory and apparently reasoning. It'd be interesting to find what additional effects this method might have on them.
Everything will be taken away from you.
You can buy choline in almost any of those stores which sell vitamins and nutritional supplements. I live in New York and there is one on every corner.
I read something similar about over a year ago in Science News magazine. Curious and willing to experiment on myself, I bought a jar of choline and started taking one a day.
Here's what I noticed:
First, its it's an intestinal irritant. Its sold in gelatine capusules and if you just swallow one a day, you'll be sorry after a while. I recommend opening the capsules and disolving the choline in something buffered, like milk.
You don't notice anything for a few weeks. And after you stop taking it, the effects persist for weeks.
The stuff is defintely psychoactive. I was constantly locked in deep thought. I finally stopped taking it because I got tired of thinking all the time.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
This strikes me as a bit bizarre.
Humanity already has a fairly well-known subgroup of people with brains that have more active neuronal structure, greater capacity for memory, a drastic reduction in age-related decline in cognitive/memorizations kills, and heightened sensory reactions. (Which is all wonderful to have, speaking firsthand.)
The response from the community has not been to embrace us. It has been to force us into painful "treatments" from a young age that train us to "act normal" -- to hide all signs that we're different, including strong natural interests in learning and pain at stimuli that doesn't bother sensory-average humans. There are huge organizations decrying how horrible it is that we exist at all, that actively claim it'd be better if we died of cancer, because we don't act just like "normal" people.
It strikes me as bizarrely hypocritical for one wing of science to be fighting to find a way to prevent/cure my kind, while another is attempting to learn how to intentionally create us. We're already here, we tend to reproduce reliably within families, we just need to be accepted rather than terrorized into hiding our abilities.
Speaking as someone autistic, I can tell you that choline suppliments made my symptoms worse and increased my ADD when I was experimenting with them several years ago. I was using them as well as Omega-3 fish oil to see if it would help my symptoms or at least dampen my ADD so I could study more effectively.
WIth that, and the study this is becoming interesting indeed.
http://saveie6.com/
Certainly true of some students in schools I've taught in. Many intelligent students adopt the time-honoured creed of "if you're truly smart, the smartest thing you can do is not to let them know how smart you are" as a coping device.
I certainly couldn't envisage sitting through the tedium of school again from a student's point of view... and yet, equally, there are a lot of students who fail to realise that studying a little chemistry or maths now gives them the base to take it further should they choose to later in their educational careers. So, ultimately, my advice would be to stick with it... make an effort to find something enjoyable or worthwhile about every task you're set whilst in education, especially if it involves opportunity to gently subvert the task; more teachers have a sense of humour about such things than you might think.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Before things are addressed on a chemical level, they need to be addressed on a psychological one. The educational system, at least in the States, has progressed very little in the past century, even though it has been pretty much established that different minds work different ways and the current methods for teaching cater to only a very small percentage of the people. All the choline in the world won't compensate for a lack of utilisation on what's already there, which, as it is, is most often neglected, or used in a way which results in burning out before full potential can be reached.
I don't try to be right, I just try to make people think
"Duke University researchers say the implications are profound for humans and the future of learning."
The problem isn't with intelligence. Its a problem with the school systems. I am in high school right now and I'm amazed how dumbed down even my Calculus class is. What was grade school level 10 years ago is High school and college level today. We need to tighten the standards and make classes more challenging. There is a huge population of "smart" students but 90% of them just get by by taking the easiert classes possible. Half of my classes I don't even know why I show up.
A smarter rat doesn't necessarily correspond to a smarter human. And human intelligence isn't necessarily related to whether the hardware is faster. By analogy, a DSP may run operations faster than a Pentium, but that doesn't make the DSP a better general purpose processor. Or, as another analogy, just upgrading the clock circuit on your motherboard doesn't just make your processor faster--it may also make it flakier. It's plausible that choline is somewhat beneficial as a nutrient during pregnancy. But I wouldn't expect miracles (if choline were that important, women would crave more of it than they do), and there is at least the possibility that an unbalanced intake actually might do some harm.
Thank you.
Teach. Don't assume that the school system will do it for you. Did when I was young. Rarely does anymore.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Further, a typical human diet already includes choline. Assuming this is important to human brain development, how much do we really need? I can understand that rats (who typically probably do not eat fresh eggs very often) might need a choline supplement to enhance brain development. Perhaps humans already get enough anyway.
Might it be possible to identify the amount of choline different populations receive from their diet and correlate this with intelligence? This would give a better basis for discussion.
Young kids have roughly double to triple the synapses as an adult. The synapses get pruned due to lack of use. So your "stimulate the senses" is good advice, which is another way of saying Use It or Lose It. In the same vein, getting more neurons and increasing firing rate might help. It's certainly not automatically a false cure.
whether you believe that any significant insight comes in chemical form.
Are you a dualist? If not, your "experience" and "skills" are a matter of chemicals and connections. If you're referring to psychedelics like LSD (which I think you are), all they do is disrupt regular circuits. Any "insights" are a result of experiencing and processing those altered states. If you're unconscious and given LSD, you won't get any "insights". It's not the chemical that provides the insight (or even enables it, except in a technical sense).
How do we know that "losing it" doesn't make us smarter? maybe it's a form of search tree pruning and learning heuristics as we grow. Maybe the trick is pruning the right ones.
It's hard enough to really test intelligence because people are skilled/talented/gifted at different things. But are there studies showing correlations between more synapses and being smarter in adults?
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
Let's start giving this to all of our kids!
Only the usual side effects apply: cancer, tics, siezure, SIDS, chronic headaches, brittle bones, frequent loose bowels....
But my kid will be SMART!!!!!
> A bunch of Super intelligent, yet hyperactive and
> ruthless 9 year olds, with ultra fast reflexes and
> photographic memory, but total lack of
> self-control and morals
I wonder why everyone seems to assume that any improvement in human capacity is always accompanied by "total lack of self-control and morals". If any correlation is warranted, it is the reverse. Perhaps it is all just sour grapes?
did you read the site you linked to????
I didn't drop out of high school because of the pleasure of being in a class with intellectual equals. Without my gifted classes I wouldn't have the drive to succeed in life.