Personal Development via Brain Cell enhancement?
Can we supplement our personal development by direct enhancement of our brain cells? Recent research suggests this may be true. As described at Science Daily, adult neurons are more adaptable or “plastic” than once thought. There may actually be on ongoing process of development.
An article at Newscientist describes how magnets might be used via Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to improve learning and memory, and directly increasing the proliferation of stem cells.
So what can you do today to improve brain cells? An article at msnbc indicates good old exercise will help boost your brain cells, perhaps not a surprise to most, but is now backed by more scientific evidence which links it to the hippocampus part of the brain.
Another fascinating fact is the role of prion protein (PrP) in brain development, see an article at mit.edu. This protein is actually involved in mad cow disease, yet is tied to the development of new neurons.
Could more brain cells be grown outside of you and be reimplanted later? As far-fetched as this seems, this is what is is spoken of at gainseville.com. Human brain cells were placed in a mouse brain, where more brain tissue was then generated. Could these brain cells then be placed back into a human?
Now you may have thought that smoking pot kills brain cells, but check out this article at Sciam.com which states “Natural marijuanalike chemicals may direct key brain cells to make proper connections while in the womb, according to a new study”.
Lastly, a researcher described at npr.org has found “the biological equivalent of a superhighway for brain cells.”. This is a very interesting find towards understanding how the brain works, and potentially enhancing it.
Any thoughts on this? I don’t like the idea of anyone messing with my brain cells, but some good old fashioned exercise is a safe bet!
People always look for easy way to fix things. Take a pillow and recover from illness. Take another and lose weight. As practice shows, most of those ideas are populated by scammers trying to make money. I’m not saything this one particular idea is a scum, but I doubt we’ll have some proven and safe ways to do something like that anytime soon.
I’d rather recommend parents to read Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham, he writes very well how talents can be developed in childhood, in a natural way. If you have bad memory you still have chance to help your kid develop good one. Unless you forget about it tomorrow, of course…
Sleeping Dude
http://www.howtowakeupearly.com
Haha, I’ll have to agree with you on that I don’t like the idea with anyone messing around with my brain cells. As I was reading the article I was thinking, I don’t care IF they could grow extra brain cells on a mouse because they SURELY won’t be opening my head up to put more brain cells there.
But it is good to know that exercise helps with brain development, as I do exercise regularly. It would be nice to have a list of all the activities and foods that help develop the brain because brain development has been a great interest of mine.
And also, it is very interesting that the same proteins found in mad cow disease is “tied to the development of new neurons.”