Can Intelligence Actually Be Increased? Part I: Neurogenesis
“Is this for real?” one of my friends asked me.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” I said staring in awe.
Standing on the stage before us, next to a giant Tesla coil was one of my childhood heroes. I’ve gone to Maker Faire every single year since I moved back to the States from New Zealand, but this year was special. If I’d only seen this man speak it would have been worth the price of admission. Who was he? Only the inventor of an entertainment device that changed the world, that’s all. He thinks that same device will now change the world again, but in a very different way.
In his talk he shared some very practical advice for doing what was once thought to be impossible: increasing human intelligence. I’ll share that same advice with you in a moment, but first a little backstory …
Have you seen the film Limitless? If you’re a tech/science geek like me you probably have – maybe more than once. The film tells the story of a down-and-out writer who discovers a pill that turns him into a genius. Suddenly he’s making money hand over first, is a hit with the ladies, and is capable of physical feats of derring-do.
Great fantasy, but never possible in the real world, right? Maybe not …
In this 3 part series I want share with you:
a. A sampling of the growing body of evidence indicating that intelligence can in fact be increased.
b. A few of the actual techniques researchers are using to increase their own intelligence and that of their test subjects.
c. How to get a free lesson from a course the team has been putting together that packages the most powerful and reliable methods for increasing intelligence into a step-by-step plan. (More about that in Part III of this series on Friday.)
First, let’s examine some of the evidence. Is it actually possible to increase one’s intelligence?
One way is to increase the number of brain cells. Until 1998 this was thought to be an impossibility. A landmark study at the Salk Institute, however, marked a paradigm shift in neuroscience. For the first time evidence of new cellular growth in the adult human brain was observed. Since then a virtual explosion of exploration into the possibilities of adult neurogenesis has occurred – sometimes in the oddest of places.
This brings us back to Maker Faire. The speaker was Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari. If you’re young let me help you out … You know that PS3 and XBox you spend so much time on? It’s likely that none of those devices would have existed if not for Nolan Bushnell. Atari was the company that launched the “console gaming” industry – an industry that now, as of 2007, grosses more than the film industry worldwide.
“Do you still play video games?” someone shouted out from the audience.
Nolan chuckled and said, “Avidly and incessantly.”
Everyone laughed, but what he said after that changed my worldview.
“No, no, you guys don’t understand. Have you heard of neurogenesis? It’s the spontaneous regeneration of adult human brain cells. Playing video games actually stimulates the process.”
What? Playing video games can actually increase one’s intelligence? According to Bushnell it is so, but there are two caveats.
First, he says that the game must be challenging. The brain, like other parts of the body, adapts and responds to stimulus. If the demand you put on the brain increases, so does the potential output of the brain. So, if you think you can increase your intelligence by playing the 4-letter challenge on hangman, you’re out of luck. (Portal 2 was the game he was currently playing and let me tell you – if you want a challenge, you’re sure to find one there. It’s an absolutely spellbinding game that will challenge even the smartest humans.)
Next, he said that the games must be new. If you’ve been playing the same game for months, it’s unlikely that it will have a neurogenerative effect at all. So, switch out your games frequently to ensure you’re constantly bombarding your brain with new, unfamiliar, stimulus.
Keep in mind that while this technique is still hotly-debated amongst neuroscientists, the logic of it does stand to reason. We’ve known for years that new, unfamiliar stimulus will most certainly create new neuronal-connections, and that the relative interconnectedness of your brain likely correlates with IQ. This point is not generally disputed, so clearly there is in fact some benefit from playing video games. If Bushnell is right, however, and it not only generates new connections but also new brain cells … the effects could be far greater than we’ve imagined.
And while there is of course much lively debate about which techniques are most effective at boosting human intelligence (as there should be with any new field), there is more good news than bad. Neurogenesis is but one of several ways widely known to increase human intelligence to which we’ll introduce you in the new course (coming Friday 23 March).
In Part II we’ll discuss yet another way to increase neurogenesis that won’t take nearly as much effort as playing a video game.
