DEF CON 25 BioHacking Village - Gingerbread - Neurogenic Peptides  Smart Drugs 4 Minute Mile
Channel: DEFCONConference
Date: 2017-10-30

Everything is impossible until it isn't.

Every undertaking, defined by the hard limitations at the edges of our possible achievement.

Lossless electrical conductivity, human travel beyond the sound 'barrier', running a four-minute mile...each, seen as some unassailable foe until, one-by-one, these milestones were not just approached and then attained, but very often surpassed. With time, these limits transition from the superlative, to the standard, and what once was thought of as impossible, now becomes the benchmark of superior performance.

The world of cognition enhancing drugs is no different.

For nearly as long as such structures have been differentiated, the cells of the brain and nervous system have been acknowledged to behave very differently than most of the others in the body.

Unlike the perpetual turn over that the rest of the body enjoys, there are only a few restricted areas in the brain and CNS of adult humans where new nerve cells are being regularly created. What you are born with, is what you have to work with.

Or is it?

Reliably producing productive structural, as opposed to solely chemical changes to the brain has long been seen as the 'Holy Grail' of Nootropics research..I am here today to discuss why the term "Four-minute mile" may be a bit more appropriate.

From the explosions of growth created in early childhood and in some illnesses, to the seemingly paradoxical benefits seen with the removal of malfunctioning structures, we are going to examine the sometimes baffling relationship between cognition and the physical structure of the brain, and how maybe, just maybe, there might be something you can do about it.