Real-Life Limitless Pill? Drug Helps Adults Learn As Fast As Children

It may sound like something from 2011 thriller Limitless, but researchers have discovered a pill that helps adults learn new skills as quickly as children. A professor at Harvard rewired the brain of a visually impaired women to process images by giving her Alzheimer’s drug donepezil.

This is something I thought was possible for a while now. Obviously, it's not something that big pharma companies would be allowed to protote ( via government interests).

That said, perhaps the worlds elite have access to something like this.

Regarding the movie "Limitless". It was a great concept that was executed poorly.

The pill boosts chemicals in the brain, such as serotonin and acetylcholine, which are both found in high concentrations in the brains of young children. These chemicals naturally reduce with age. Children under seven develop new skills rapidly because their brains go through what’s called ‘critical periods’ of development.

I'm not a big fan of synthetic drugs, but I must admit, I think I'd take this pill in some cycles. At least till I learned everything.

A bit more...

Children develop new skills rapidly as their brains go through ‘critical periods’ of development. This means they learn new languages, absorb information and pick up musical skills much faster than adults. In adults, these skills become harder as the brain reaches peak development and loses this ‘elasticity’.
Professor Takao Hensch gave donepezil to a 14-year-old girl called Shannon, a patient at the Boston Children’s Hospital. Shannon has a condition called amblyopia that impairs her vision, also known as a ‘lazy eye.’ Following tests with donepezil, Shannon was able to process images with her affected eye, in the same way a newborn would.
In December, Professor Hensch similarly used an epilepsy drug called valproate to teach tone-deaf adults how to pick out different musical notes. Participants who took the valproate were able to correctly identify an average of 5.09 notes, while people in a control group could only identify 3.5.

Link

Any thoughts on the pros and cons of this?

AAC

reply to post by AnAbsoluteCreation


it is only worth while if you retain what you learn after you stop taking the pill.
it is only worth while as long as no other ability whether it be physical or emotional, is hampered while taking the pill or after you stop.

reply to post by AnAbsoluteCreation


I wonder if it causes anxiety. If I'm not mistaken, isn't acetylcholine involved in anxiety?

reply to post by AnAbsoluteCreation


I honestly can't comment on the pros and cons per-say, but I'm all in. For a stretch of time I took a product called Neurostin which is supposed to stimulate the production of acetylcholine, and the difference in my overall brain function was noticeably improved. I'm not saying it made me super intelligent. It did make me more alert, aware, and responsive, and I seemed to recall information slightly more easily. It could have been placebo effect, but I wasn't fully expecting it to do anything.

That being said, I wouldn't mind trying a product that could do an even better job.

subfab
reply to post by AnAbsoluteCreation

 

it is only worth while if you retain what you learn after you stop taking the pill.
it is only worth while as long as no other ability whether it be physical or emotional, is hampered while taking the pill or after you stop.

Yes. I'm presently researching the side effects of the Alzheimer's drug. Might give a pretty good glimpse of the possible side effects.

My grandfather had Alzheimer's disease and he had a significant hair growth in areas that he hadn't had hair in decades... As a side note.

AAC.

barring any adverse side effects id be willing to give it a try.
maybe a couple of small adverse effects might be worth it.

But, would you have to keep taking the drug to retain what you've learned?
even so id still consider it.

My thoughts are band-wagon stupidity and [this] to accompany aforementioned thought www.abovetopsecret.com...

Really.

Do tell us some more.
How stupid can people get? How much will they destroy. I'm really curious to see when the threshold will be crossed.

Please, continue.

reply to post by ishum

barring any adverse side effects id be willing to give it a try.
maybe a couple of small adverse effects might be worth it.

But, would you have to keep taking the drug to retain what you've learned?
even so id still consider it. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Are you freaking serious right now?

Is this post/thread supposed to be for entertainment purposes? It's a legitimate question.
I would really like to be ignorant and believe your post to be a product of sheer boredom. It's not Is it? Tell me it is.

unb3k44n7
reply to post by ishum

 

barring any adverse side effects id be willing to give it a try.
maybe a couple of small adverse effects might be worth it.

But, would you have to keep taking the drug to retain what you've learned?
even so id still consider it. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Are you freaking serious right now?

Is this post/thread supposed to be for entertainment purposes? It's a legitimate question.
I would really like to be ignorant and believe your post to be a product of sheer boredom. It's not Is it? Tell me it is.

edit on 4/7/2014 by unb3k44n7 because: (no reason given)

But he might change his mind once he's had some?

reply to post by VoidHawk




...can't save em all can we, voidhawk.

sounds like a fun supplement, but ultimately whos actually going to take it every day?

reply to post by Biigs

sounds like a fun supplement

Oh my god.

Can someone please step in and lie to me and tell me this is just trolling?
I need to get out of here.

So, I used to work in a pharm and dispensed countless RX of this medication....

Can't say I could attest to it being the real life limitless pill, shoot I think you would have a better sell with the anti narcolepsy pills or the countless ADHD medications and the amounts that MD's are willing to prescribe for a single person.

Everytime I see a news headline about some
'crazy awesome miracle !' (insert some sensationalized nonsense here)
This is my reaction:

i.imgur.com...


For example- from the DailyMail article in the OP
Underneath that riveting headline, the byline in the article uses the term, and I quote-"Brain elasticity".
Facepalm- can't even get the science correct in a freakin BYLINE?! THE CORRECT TERM IS PLASTICITY AND YES IT MATTERS!
elasticity is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than plasticity.

So, Like the elephant in the link...
a narrative of my reaction:

Initial assessment-
Ohhh! What is this ?!
Is Professor Farnsworth bringing me "good news everyone!" ?
This looks like it could be fun and educational! prance prance optimism and curiosity and oh myyyyy

NOPE.

ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!
ENGAGE BABY ELEPHANT SPRINT AND HIDE MODE!

double post

reminds me of "flowers for algernon"

en.wikipedia.org...

written in 1958. the movie was good.

Short story[edit]
The story is told through a series of journal entries written by the story's protagonist, Charlie Gordon, a man with an IQ of 68 who works a menial job as a janitor in a factory. He is selected to undergo an experimental surgical technique to increase his intelligence. The technique had already been successfully tested on Algernon, a laboratory mouse. The surgery on Charlie is also a success and his IQ triples.

Charlie falls in love with his former teacher, Miss Kinnian, but as his intelligence increases, he surpasses her intellectually and they become unable to relate to each other. He also realizes that his co-workers at the factory, whom he thought were his friends, only liked him to be around so that they could make fun of him. His new intelligence scares his co-workers at his job; they start a petition to have him fired but when Charlie finds out about the petition, he quits. As Charlie's intelligence peaks, Algernon suddenly declines—losing his increased intelligence and mental age, and dying shortly afterward, to be buried in a cheese box in Charlie's backyard. Charlie discovers that his intelligence increase is also only temporary. He starts to experiment to find out the cause of the flaw in the experiment, which he calls the "Algernon-Gordon Effect". Just when he finishes his experiments, his intelligence begins to degenerate, to such an extent that he becomes even less intelligent than he was before the experiment. Charlie is aware of, and pained by, what is happening to him as he loses his knowledge and his ability to read and write. He tries to get his old job as a janitor back, and tries to revert to normal but he cannot stand the pity from his co-workers, landlady, and Ms. Kinnian. Charlie states he plans to "go away" from New York and move to a new place. His last wish is that someone put flowers on Algernon's grave every day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------

only in pill form.

here is you tube link to the movie.

www.youtube.com...

reply to post by tsingtao


Great reference. Really loved that you brought that story up.

As far as the OP goes, let's see...donepezil can cause bradycardia, heart block and syncope. Not so good things. It can also cause diarrhea, nausea, peptic ulcers, bleeding of the gastrointestinal tract, and, good golly, possible seizures. What a trade off to learn a few more things that many probably won't actually do because they'll be more likely to spend their time surfing the net, texting, or watching tv. Unless one is planning on devoting the entire time that one is on the drug with actually only doing studies, I don't know...I think I'd leave it to the people who actually need it to regain lost abilities. A simpler alternative could be to actively study a subject every day.

Where this pill is not like Limitless--it doesn't alter the existing intelligence level. It just means that you can learn a little faster; however, the quality and overall ability of that learning are not "limitless".

reply to post by WhiteAlice


To my conspiratorial mind it sounds like the perfect scam to get people to poison themselves!

To my even more conspiratorial mind I wonder how this drug could be employed, in torture methods, to maybe make subjects even more pliable to suggestion

DietJoke
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

To my conspiratorial mind it sounds like the perfect scam to get people to poison themselves!

To my even more conspiratorial mind I wonder how this drug could be employed, in torture methods, to maybe make subjects even more pliable to suggestion

I don't know about it making them more pliable to suggestion; however, I'd definitely say that it would make one more liable towards indigestion.

Sorry guys, the topic is already being discussed over here.

Please direct further comments to the other thread

CLOSED