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Two Hydrogens and One Oxygen, a Recipe for Cognitive Enhancement?

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Bioethicists have engaged in endless hand wringing in recent years about whether substances that purportedly allow us to remember and process information more efficiently should be available to everyone, not just kids with ADHD. If you can make your brain work better in some way that doesn't entail poring over a pre-calculus text for hours, why bloody not?

The only problem with this argument is that a true cognitive enhancer is hard to come by—and nothing much is on the horizon. That's why I chuckled last week when I read a paper in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience that pegged as brain booster a chemical consisting of two hydrogens and an oxygen to boot.

"Does having a drink help you think?" began the paper in Frontiers. Researchers at the University of East London and the University of Westminster weren't testing the effects of single malts on mental functioning. What they had discovered was that those who felt thirsty and then imbibed water, after going without overnight, logged better performances on a test of reaction time compared to those who hadn't drunk and were longing for a gulp.


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The apparent mechanism of action didn't involve heterodimerization of G protein-coupled receptors or any other elaborate biological machination. Slaking thirst appeared to remove the distractions of parched throats so study participants could concentrate on the task at hand. So what's the big deal? Only 34 participants and the results seem pedestrian and even somewhat equivocal: the study also showed poorer performance on a test of flexibility and abstract thinking for those who were properly hydrated.

Maybe all just a fluke, although one of the study's authors, Caroline J. Edmonds of the University of East London, has reported real effects on cognition from water drinking in other studies. The thing is that this same fuzzy absence of clear-cut results besets the science for other supposed brain enhancers. Ritalin and Adderall, which are billed as helping you to concentrate and think better, are gobbled down avidly by the likes of Wall Street traders. John Harris, a bioethicist at the University of Manchester, has raised the question of whether it might even be unethical to prevent healthy people from juicing up with Ritalin, and a commentary in Nature echoed similar views. But here again the science doesn't seem to be gaining any measure of solidity that favors bringing a 20 mg pick-me-up along with pencils and a calculator to a three-hour final. A study published in June by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that, in a large group of children from Quebec, boys on Ritalin performed more poorly in school and girls experienced more emotional problems. The drug can increase mental focus but it often results in a laser-like attachment to the task at hand, inhibiting the necessary shift in attention to avoid bogging down in a given activity.

All of this doesn't take us very far down the royal road to some ultimate form of self-improvement. So relax and have a sip when the waiter serves the ice water before you order. Maybe it'll hasten your choice between the tomato salad or the shrimp cocktail. Just don't expect what's in the glass—whether Pellegrino, tap or Maker's—to tote up IQ points. You're probably already playing with pretty close to a full deck—Ritalin or water aren't going to make much of a difference. What you've got going already is about as good as it gets.

Image Source: Alex Anlicker

 

 

Gary Stix, Scientific American's neuroscience and psychology editor, commissions, edits and reports on emerging advances and technologies that have propelled brain science to the forefront of the biological sciences. Developments chronicled in dozens of cover stories, feature articles and news stories, document groundbreaking neuroimaging techniques that reveal what happens in the brain while you are immersed in thought; the arrival of brain implants that alleviate mood disorders like depression; lab-made brains; psychological resilience; meditation; the intricacies of sleep; the new era for psychedelic drugs and artificial intelligence and growing insights leading to an understanding of our conscious selves. Before taking over the neuroscience beat, Stix, as Scientific American's special projects editor, oversaw the magazine's annual single-topic special issues, conceiving of and producing issues on Einstein, Darwin, climate change, nanotechnology and the nature of time. The issue he edited on time won a National Magazine Award. Besides mind and brain coverage, Stix has edited or written cover stories on Wall Street quants, building the world's tallest building, Olympic training methods, molecular electronics, what makes us human and the things you should and should not eat. Stix started a monthly column, Working Knowledge, that gave the reader a peek at the design and function of common technologies, from polygraph machines to Velcro. It eventually became the magazine's Graphic Science column. He also initiated a column on patents and intellectual property and another on the genesis of the ingenious ideas underlying new technologies in fields like electronics and biotechnology. Stix is the author with his wife, Miriam Lacob, of a technology primer called Who Gives a Gigabyte: A Survival Guide to the Technologically Perplexed (John Wiley & Sons, 1999).

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