I have none so far. Without a mechanism of action, I can’t assess what criterion it might satisfy to avoid Algernon’s law. The speculation about it upregulating NMDA to change plasticity is not enough to go on—at this point I can only offer the generic observations that there are probably metabolic limits to learning in the ancestral environment but they would not apply to ours and this may be why our learning is regulated below its peak.
EDIT: For example, there’s a whole theory of sleep (“synaptic homeostasis”) which says it exists solely to reduce overall synaptic potentiation: the more learning you do, the more synapses fire more, and the more energy the brain needs just to function. The effect isn’t small: something like >10% by nightime in one study the author cited.
I have none so far. Without a mechanism of action, I can’t assess what criterion it might satisfy to avoid Algernon’s law. The speculation about it upregulating NMDA to change plasticity is not enough to go on—at this point I can only offer the generic observations that there are probably metabolic limits to learning in the ancestral environment but they would not apply to ours and this may be why our learning is regulated below its peak.
EDIT: For example, there’s a whole theory of sleep (“synaptic homeostasis”) which says it exists solely to reduce overall synaptic potentiation: the more learning you do, the more synapses fire more, and the more energy the brain needs just to function. The effect isn’t small: something like >10% by nightime in one study the author cited.