I think this is a good idea, although SNPs might be overdoing it (for now; soon it will be cheap enough to sequence the whole genome and run whatever tests we like). There is a dearth of data on cognitive enhancers in real settings, and a real need to see what actually works for who and for what.
What I would like to see is volunteers testing themselves on a number of dimensions including IQ, working memory span, big 5 personality, ideally a bunch of biomarkers. In particular it would be good if we could get neurotransmitter levels, but to my knowledge there are no direct measurement methods which aren’t invasive—there are a few indirect measures that may have some validity. Genotyping for cytochromes might be a good thing to check for pharmacogenomic effects.
In this ideal experiment, these volunteers would then run small online cognitive tests of various kinds every day, as well as enter comments (including side effects) into a medical blog. In an even more ideal experiment there would be extra data from life recording and in a complete dream world people would actually get bottles with placebo and the drug in mixed pills. One could imagine a site, “enhancement@home”, that gathered these data and acted as a flexible privacy filter. People could use an API to data mine the reports and look for the effect, especially when controlling for various traits.
I think it is doable. I think it could be very helpful. I also think that developing this kind of “wikiepidemiology” would require some serious planning beforehand, to ensure the data collected actually is likely to tell something useful, not run afoul of bad laws (medical and drug use data does have some hefty regulations) and to make it appealing for everybody.
I think this is a good idea, although SNPs might be overdoing it (for now; soon it will be cheap enough to sequence the whole genome and run whatever tests we like). There is a dearth of data on cognitive enhancers in real settings, and a real need to see what actually works for who and for what.
What I would like to see is volunteers testing themselves on a number of dimensions including IQ, working memory span, big 5 personality, ideally a bunch of biomarkers. In particular it would be good if we could get neurotransmitter levels, but to my knowledge there are no direct measurement methods which aren’t invasive—there are a few indirect measures that may have some validity. Genotyping for cytochromes might be a good thing to check for pharmacogenomic effects.
In this ideal experiment, these volunteers would then run small online cognitive tests of various kinds every day, as well as enter comments (including side effects) into a medical blog. In an even more ideal experiment there would be extra data from life recording and in a complete dream world people would actually get bottles with placebo and the drug in mixed pills. One could imagine a site, “enhancement@home”, that gathered these data and acted as a flexible privacy filter. People could use an API to data mine the reports and look for the effect, especially when controlling for various traits.
I think it is doable. I think it could be very helpful. I also think that developing this kind of “wikiepidemiology” would require some serious planning beforehand, to ensure the data collected actually is likely to tell something useful, not run afoul of bad laws (medical and drug use data does have some hefty regulations) and to make it appealing for everybody.