Better Thinking Through Chemistry

Today, I went along to see Andrew Vladimirov give a talk called Hacking your Wetware, as part of the London Futurist meetup group. This was about studies into enhancing your brain using pharmaceuticals and electromagnetic fields.

It looks a bit weird and groovy, but it was all about neurochemistry and was fascinating, if a bit involved for someone with O-level Chemistry and who didn't do Biology because he didn't like the idea of cutting up frogs.

The first part of the talk concerned how the brain works and what was required to improve it. Most people know that the brain is composed of neurons, brain cells. These cells are connected together and it's these connections that form memories. The more connections, the easier they form and the quicker the electrical impulses travel down those connections, the smarter you are because the more you can remember and the quicker you can remember (and recall) it.

Andrew went through the various drug types (called Nootropics) and discussed their effectiveness, before covering genetics. He didn't get time to discuss the use of electromagnetic fields and will be discussing that in some detail in a further lecture. He also uses the drugs on himself, notably Piracetam, which he found to be quite effective, but he emphasised that the brain gets smarter by learning the way that muscles get bigger by exercising. The drugs and other techniques only make it easier to do so.

All in all, it was a very good lecture, leavened with some dry humour (he discussed the effect of amphetamines on rats, saying that it did not seem to improve their intelligence, but made them highly active, agitated and nervous. No kidding!).