Savantic Latency: Mind the Current

Are you a latent savant, with hidden mental powers waiting only for the proper trigger, to reveal themselves? Perhaps. A recent posting by commenter Mike led to this provocative NYT article from 2003 about the work of esteemed neuroscientist Allan W. Snyder:

If Snyder's suspicions are correct, in fact, and savants have not more brainpower than the rest of us, but less, then it's even possible that everybody starts out life as a savant. Look, for example, at the ease with which children master complex languages -- a mysterious skill that seems to shut off automatically around the age of 12. ''What we're doing is counterintuitive,'' Snyder tells me. ''We're saying that all these genius skills are easy, they're natural. Our brain does them naturally. Like walking. Do you know how difficult walking is? It's much more difficult than drawing!''

...Snyder's theories are bolstered by the documented cases in which sudden brain damage has produced savant abilities almost overnight. He cites the case of Orlando Serrell, a 10-year-old street kid who was hit on the head and immediately began doing calendrical calculations of baffling complexity. Snyder argues that we all have Serrell's powers. ''We remember virtually everything, but we recall very little,'' Snyder explains. ''Now isn't that strange? Everything is in there'' -- he taps the side of his head. ''Buried deep in all our brains are phenomenal abilities, which we lose for some reason as we develop into 'normal' conceptual creatures. But what if we could reawaken them?''____Source

Snyder, who has been publishing in the scientific literature for several decades, currently experiments with transcranial electromagnetic stimulation to bring out latent abilities mental.

The researchers think that by temporarily inhibiting activity in the left anterior temporal cortex, the TMS allowed the brain’s number estimator to act on raw sensory data, without it having already been automatically grouped together into patterns or shapes. In other words, they believe it caused the 'normal' brain to function more like an autistic 'savant' brain.___Source

Some forms of electromagnetic stimulation enhance the function of the stimulated portion of brain, and other forms of EMS suppress the function of the stimulated brain. Such a tool can function in an analogous way to a reversible "knock-out gene" in genetics research. By removing particular "instruments from the brain's symphony", we can glimpse the workings of a differently arranged brain.

It is not really a matter of whether savants have more or less brainpower than the rest of us. It is a matter of how the brain is being used. As people gain experience in life, they use forms of "mental shorthand" to speed repetitive mental functions. We do not actually read every word, but rather clump words and paragraphs into "essential meanings" to save time as we read. It seems that by taking shortcuts, we gain some time, and possibly lose something else.

"Modern" education is geared to shortcut thinking. The savants are "weeded out" by our educational system, because they make the teacher's work harder. Teachers have forgotten how to see the world in "raw" terms, without the learned shortcuts. The savants do not fit, so we toss them in with the refuse, or drug the savant out of them.

Yet, never have we needed the savants more than today, when modern societies find themselves in traps of their own making, but without any understanding of what is needed to open the cage door. Political systems are tightening the trap, and every proposed and attempted solution promises to make the situation worse. Political "change" is merely shorthand for a re-dressing of more-of-the-same. Savants have the ability to see elements of a problem that are hiding in plain sight.

An autistic savant is different from a genius savant, or prodigy. A normal person with savant-latency is a different creature still. Presumably, after the brain stimulation is turned off, the normal-cum-savant reverts back to normalcy. Autistic savants and prodigies typically retain their gifts for much longer periods of time, although not always permanently. Most of us probably wish to be polymaths, which may be possible eventually, with more advanced brain stimulation, or brain machine interfaces.

Here is more about the polymath.

More on Snyder's work here.

BTW, check out the new blog Brain Stimulant, if you are interested in brain electromagnetic stimulation.

Wake Up! Hypocretin 1 Makes Sleep Optional

Orexin A (hypocretin-1) is a peptide hormone that according to recent research has the ability to keep monkeys awake. Now the US Military is attempting to show that it can do the same for humans.

Orexin A is a promising candidate to become a "sleep replacement" drug. For decades, stimulants have been used to combat sleepiness, but they can be addictive and often have side effects, including raising blood pressure or causing mood swings. The military, for example, administers amphetamines to pilots flying long distances, and has funded research into new drugs like the stimulant modafinil and orexin A in an effort to help troops stay awake with the fewest side effects.

...The research follows the discovery by Siegel that the absence of orexin A appears to cause narcolepsy. That finding pointed to a major role for the peptide's absence in causing sleepiness. It stood to reason that if the deficit of orexin A makes people sleepy, adding it back into the brain would reduce the effects, said Siegel....Any commercial treatment using the substance would need approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which can take more than a decade.Wired

What else can the orexins do besides help monkeys stay awake? Orexin reportedly also increases the craving for food.

Clearly there is a lot to be learned about the effects of these peptide hormones. This hormone has the potential to be a drug of abuse, if the FDA drags its feet too long.

Hat tip Impact Lab

The Next Generation of Cortical Stimulants

Cephalon's drug Modafinil has been a hit with people who wanted to stay awake while remaining alert--pilots, soldiers, medical doctors, swing shift workers, students . . . But Cephalon cannot rest on its laurels and expect to stay on top in this market. Cortex Pharmaceuticals is developing a newer type of cortical stimulant--an ampakine called CX717. CX717 promises to revolutionise treatment of ADHD, age-related cognitive decline, and cognitive deterioration from sleep deprivation.

Cephalon's answer to CX717 is Nuvigil--the single isomer of the racemic drug Modafinil. It isn't clear that Nuvigil will be better in terms of better efficacy or fewer side effects than Modafinil, but it will allow Cephalon to patent a new drug in the same class--just when Modafinil's patent will be running out.

No, it is the new Ampakine that is being anticipated by most neuroscientists and mental health workers. This class of drugs may very well improve the outlook for sufferers of cognitive decline of several types, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, even congenital childhood diseases of cognition.

Hat tip gizmag, and Popular Science.

Update: Here's an interesting story on the stock price of Cortex Pharmaceuticals. The FDA recently halted trials of CX717 because of "tissue damage" in some test rats. It may be concluded eventually that the damage was actually caused by formaldehyde--quien sabe?

The interesting thing about this little setback is that the price of Cortex (COR) was recently trading for under US $2 a share, due to the FDA's continuing hold on CX717. If CX717 is finally approved, and proves itself even fractionally as important as many informed observers expect, that $2 price should shoot up very quickly.

Smart Drugs: What are the Prospects?

We begin with an article from Sciam Mind, by Michael Gazzaniga.
Enhancing intelligence is not science fiction. Many "smart" drugs are in clinical trials and could be on the market in less than five years. Some medications currently available to patients with memory disorders may also increase intelligence in the healthy population. Likewise, few people would lament the use of such aids to ameliorate the forgetfulness that aging brings. Drugs that counter these deficits would be adopted gratefully by millions of people.

Drugs designed for psychotherapy can also be used to enhance certain regular mental functions. Just as Ritalin can improve the academic performance of hyperactive children, it can do the same for normal children. It is commonly thought to boost SAT scores by more than 100 points, for both the hyperactive and the normal user. Many healthy young people now use it that way for that purpose, and quite frankly, there is no stopping this abuse.

... consider the following. In July 2002 Jerome Yesavage and his colleagues at Stanford University discovered that donepezil, a drug approved by the FDA to slow the memory loss of Alzheimer's patients, improves the memory of the normal population. The researchers trained pilots in a flight simulator to perform specific maneuvers and to respond to emergencies that developed during their mock flight, after giving half the pilots donepezil and half a placebo. One month later they retested the pilots and found that those who had taken the donepezil remembered their training better, as shown by improved performance. The possibility exists that donepezil could become a Ritalin for college students. I believe nothing can stop this trend, either.

...Recently geneticists have discovered that even such abstract qualities as personality and intelligence are coded for in our genetic blueprint. Studies of the genetic basis of g are just beginning, and because g most likely arises from the influence of many genes, the hunt will be a long one. Yet one study has already found that a gene on chromosome 6 is linked to intelligence.

So-called genetic brain mapping could help the search. Scientists are looking at the structural features (size, volume, and so on) of the brains of many individuals, including twins, familial relatives and unrelated individuals. By scanning all these brains in magnetic resonance imaging machines and looking at the differences, researchers have been able to determine which areas of the brain are most under the control of genes. These studies have emerged only in the past three to four years. Geneticists hope that once they know which brain areas are most affected by heredity, they can figure out which genes are responsible for those regions. With this kind of reverse mapping, the experts should be able to learn more about the genetics of intelligence.

...Whatever happens, we can be sure that cognitive enhancement drugs will be developed and that they will be used and misused. But just as most people do not choose to alter their mood with Prozac and just as we all reorient our lives in the face of unending opportunities to change our sense of normal, our society will absorb new memory drugs according to each individual's underlying philosophy and sense of self. Self-regulation will occur. The few people who desire altered states will find the means, and those who do not want to alter their sense of who they are will ignore the drug potions. The government should stay out of it, letting our own ethical and moral sense guide us through the new enhancement landscape. by Michael Gazzaniga

Next we go to Nootropics.com, a Hedweb site. This review of "Smart Drugs 2" by John Morgenthaler and Steven Fowkes, links to discussions of several potential smart drugs, as well as discussions about the underlying neuroscience and pharmacology involved. Here, we are introduced to modafinil, an increasingly prescribed drug that seems to do what it is supposed to do, with few serious side effects.

Modafinil, or Provigil, is a new stimulant with several different indications, and many more off label uses. Modafinil.org lists 45 uses of modafinil, cognitive enhancement being number 45. Modafinil.com is another Hedweb site, full of links to other pages describing the neuropharmacology of provigil, and the underlying neuroscience involved. Modafinil is becoming very popular with young professionals who never seem to have enough time to get everything done. Militaries use it for special ops troops, helicopter pilots, and pilots on long bombing missions. It works for ADD/ADHD, as an adjunct for depression, for cerebral palsy, and many more dysfunctions. Cephalon is coming out with a single isomer formulation of modafinil called "Nuvigil."

Both donazepil and modafinil are available from physicians, and over the internet. The ethics of internet prescribing are a bit shaky, but expect these drugs to become more available, rather than less, with time.

The last stop on today's smart drug train is the Ampakine station. Ampakines have the potential to not only help normal people think more clearly, as Donazepil and Modafinil seem to do, but to also make them "smarter." Ampakines directly affect the basic learning system of the brain.

New Scientist presented an article last May titled "11 Steps to a Better Brain." Gary Lynch, the inventor of ampakines, was cautious but optimistic:
The drug acts only in the brain, claims Lynch. It has a short half-life of hours. Ampakines have been shown to restore function to severely sleep-deprived monkeys that would otherwise perform poorly. Preliminary studies in humans are just as exciting. You could make an elderly person perform like a much younger person, he says.

While donazepil works on the acetylcholine system, and modafinil works on dopamine receptors, ampakines in contrast affect the glutamate receptors, specifically AMPA receptors. From neurotrasmitter.net, here are a few dozen scientific abstracts dealing with potential ampakines and mechanisms of ampakines--if the wikipedia article did not give you enough information.

That is a lot of information to digest, although if you take these drugs it may not be as difficult as you might think. Perhaps a joke, perhaps not? In time, people who choose not to boost their cognition may be less common than those who choose to do so.

The long term goal is to adjust the genes themselves, to do a better job of improving cognition than any one drug, or symphony of drugs, could possibly do. In the meantime, expect smart drugs to be delivered by pill, injection, skin patch, long term implant, and even injector pumps. The intelligence of a population is serious business, more serious than most people understand. For now.