I have heard a bout an experiment, where scientist covered (i think one of) the eyes of a new born monkey for extended periods of time. The result being its unability later to see with the covered eyes, never been able te regain much visual capacity. The explanation was the elimination of nun functional circuits, and neurons (which would get activated if the eye would not be covered). That resulted in underdeveloppment of occipital lobe. There is another mention of such a mechanism, playing a role in brain death, where neurons disconnected from oxigen and sugar supply, would stop functioning much, and eventually activate apoptosis because of inactivity. I forgot where i read it, but its in textbooks for general neuroscientists or maybe even other biologists i dont know.

So, i proposed that maybe in childhood, non-activation of areas responsible for some frontal lobe parts or otherwise, which play some key roles in synthesis, and highly simbolical processing will also lead to synapse and gray matter reduction belov a certain point where it limits intellectual capabilities later on. Perhaps unbalanced activation in pattern proocessing (sorting out differences and similarities) may lead to a reduced wide scanning ability. That would explain why an intellectual and a not so much intellectual persons marriage may result in most of the kids being directed towards intellectual activities (given that they mostly connect to the intellectual one).

I think its usefull to create an experiment trying to proove the opposite, where the kids would get those funxctions activated more from an early age. It might proove that ts able to create a society with significantly denser intellectuals compared to the given.

Just a sidenote, frontal lobe areas and i think entorhinal areas complete myelination somewhat later. That might influence the possibility of activation of those areas early in develpment, but that also can mean, that they chwecked people who were not engaged in intellectual activitiey early in development (activity influences myelination since its not so cheap, so the most used one gets it first).

What do u think?

Sounds like genetic manipulation.

But strangely i had theory of rushing blood to certain areas of the brain stimulating it but what where would all this extra blood come from... meaning for it work you'd have to shut down certain parts of the brain temporarily worst yet this can permanent effects. Although i believe this is a good idea its going to need a lot of testing before we try it on a human let alone an animal. Then i wondered what if the child simply shifted functions to other parts much like a young child can have 1 half of their brain removed for seizure problems.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 13 2012, 3:53 pm by Tempz.

Try to clean up spelling and punctuation a bit please!

I really have no idea what you are trying to say.

TL;DR: Let's make people smarter by activating parts of the brain more than others.

Electricity seems to be the most used vector for this idea. And it's already been accomplished.

Yes but for that to work you require a somewhat constant electrical current... i had the idea of electircal current as well but thought it wasn't as practical.

Constant? The research demonstrates that the method is highly practical, since one treatment has effects that last for months.

The researchers explicitly state that the treatment should not be used for normal individuals, only for those with mathematical deficiencies. I disagree, I think all persons should benefit from the treatment.

Ahh my mistake.

What do you mean by 'activating'

Hmmm, this seems like a good idea, once you can make sure there is no risk involved. I doubt that'd be the case though, depending on the under-performance of people whose brain was stimulated left to right mentioned in that page. This might mean that "activating" memory and calculation skills via electricity this way might make the person less creative, or something similiar to that. But if there is a way to "activate" the brain without risking side effects or compromising the brain's efficiency in doing other tasks, I'd support this completely. However if this gets big I predict there might be some moral issues from the public, like making kids that are treated to this method do a lot better in school than the kids that aren't is not going to be fair and that kind of stuff.

Perhaps in the future, people (or at least rich people) will have mechanical implants om their bodies. "Activating" parts of the brain seems like something a cyborg would have.

It's only the next step towards transhumanism. We simply find ways to make ourselves smarter.

I always found it odd that people like Stephen Hawking are in the same species as snooki.

Just one more thing, not necessarily activate it by outer stimulation. I know the area of interest in people is dependent much on how much they can succeed on a task. There is a need for brain activation (more parts activated) so the animal gonna search either new stuff (in humans, learning interesting things) or something which requries quite some processing, like playing games (these also have goals as well). If u just leave one way for a baby to satisfy mind activation needs, specific parts for that kind of information processing will activate (keeping connections there alive, as well as creating more). The baby gonna keep satisfiing brain activation needs the way it satsisfactorily connected new information to something they already known to be good (or connected to themselves (or maybe even to things they decide being bad in some cases)). u know the proposal also leaves the possibility, that some matematically or intellectually less able ar so, because they have lost some capacity during childhood.

EDIT: i write with one hand and too fast sometimes (i have to whach the keys i hit). i dont realy check spelling.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 16 2012, 8:19 pm by matefkr.

matefkr is causing me mental anguish...

I recall a study done on children developing poor eyesight. If you get it fixed via corrective lenses, the eyes no longer have to work as hard to see, and the degradation of eyesight will continue. If you make the child sit closer or fix it so the child has 20/40 or 20/30 eyesight instead of 20/15 eyesight, the eyes continually have to work and will attempt to fix themselves.

Seriously, the number of people in the world with poor eyesight is astounding. I can't believe the gene was allowed to reproduce. Likely what happened is that children with the gene were taken care of by their parents, then after a few years, their eyesight returned. We've gone and changed that by using corrective lenses.

i have no idea what u mean by the first line.. Also i have noticed peeople here keep trolling on me or shit. That aint workin, so quit it (im just saying so that u wont waste ur lines on it).

yeah, eyesight might be bad at some point in life, but how du u conclude there are many people with bad genes for eyesight?

1. There are trolls, granted, but I believe it could be said that there is a level of post quality that SEN requires. I'm not going to tell you you're a shitty poster but you could use some work, friend.

2. A lot of people wear glasses.

But it's more or less a treatable disease, so there's not much push for genetic therapy concerning myopia. Other eye diseases however... They're a different matter.

I'll ask the obvious questions...

What bad things can happen from this?
and
How long do you guys think it'll take to do this?

cuz I want it now LOL PLZPLZPLZPLZ transfer funds for cure to cancer to this? maybe?

to tickels, having lot of people with glasses, doesnt conclude ba genes. its like saying having many holes and scars in war concludes some strange kind of healing disability. It might be more closely linked to environmental efffects.

To ezterix: cancer is pretty much cured. look at sens.org WILT. That is removal of telomerase from human body all together, diminishing the chance that cancerous cells can replicate for long. So far they had not found any other uses for the telomerase gene, besides lengthening telomeres. So it pretty much looks like cancer is cured, but next step is to efficiently reseed human body with peoples own stem cells in vitro cultured and with exogenously lengthened telomers.

Anyway, to the question: as far as humans dont deelop faster, i can say a conclzusive ansver to the questiions of the experiment, is within twenty years; thou some of the good effects of such society on their social behaviour will show up in just 8-12 years. To be conmclusive enough, 60-80 kids at first would be good at least, and then a couple of hundred in next generation (where previous acts as teacher as well). Ever kind of available equipment to iuncrease the richness of their enviroonment should be available to them too; i mean microscopes or such, good quality simulations on fast computers, ways to create phyísical stzaff, or manipulate the things seen under microscope. Some of such machines are expensive, but thats usually artificial, their unitprice in energy and material is less.

Ha, if only it were that easy.