A Pill That Makes You Learn Like A Child Again.

Never ceases to amaze me how quickly things turn from sci-fi to reality in this day and age.  The question asked in the sci-fi film "Limitless" How many of us know what it is to become the perfect version of ourselves?" May be a question answered as researchers have discovered a pill that helps adults learn new skills as quickly as children. Now there something I could sign up for even though I am sure it comes with the typical list of hazard side effects because as you know everything is a tradeoff. So here we go…

Recently at Harvard one of their professors rewired the brain of a visually impaired woman to process images by giving her Alzheimer’s drug donepezil.

This particular pill increases the brains levels of chemicals like serotonin and acetylcholine, which are both found in high concentrations in the brains of young children, chemicals that naturally decrease as we age.

While we are still at the ages when our body produces higher amounts of these chemicals our brains go through what is termed a ‘critical period’ when we can develop new skills quickly.  For most people this period ends around seven. This is why children seem to absorb information whether math or music, much easier than adults, because they do.

Researchers believe that as adults brains lose elasticity learning becomes much more difficult. If you recall the film “Limitless” with Bradley Cooper in the plot he takes a pill that opens up closed regions of his brain to boost his intelligence, motor skills and more the new pill mimics those results.

In an interview with The Atlantic. lead researcher Professor Hensch theory is this,

‘The brain is not losing its plasticity forever as we grow older. Instead, it throws on the brakes at certain times. It’s the brain’s job to be elastic, and it wants to rewire. 'But through evolution, it’s created a lot of molecules to make sure it doesn’t rewire too much.  He continued: ‘Much of our adult behavior reflects the neural circuits sculpted by experience in infancy and early childhood.  ‘How this plasticity waxes and wanes with age carries an impact far beyond neuroscience, including education policy, therapeutic approaches to developmental disorders or strategies for recovery from brain injury in adulthood.’