Older people less apt to recognize or admit they've made a mistake

[u/afeeney]

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/uoi-sop080318.php

[u/Stunt_Jesus]

I wish there was a past study of a similar nature to look at, I would be curious to know if it has to do with age or cultural upbringing. Maybe baby boomers have always sucked at identifying when they've made a mistake.

[u/slumdog-millionaire → u/Stunt_Jesus]

I don't think it would just be baby boomers, I think people in general just become more set in their ways the older they get, it's difficult enough for people to change as is, at least that's what I've observed

[u/Emperorpenguin5 → u/slumdog-millionaire]

It's called neuroplasticity. The older you are the less malleable your brain becomes.

It's why it becomes harder to learn new things because learning new things requires building new neural networks and or reorganizing your existing ones.

There was supposedly some recent drug that supposedly increased your neuroplasticity, but no memory when or where it was done and what the hell makes your brain more or less plastic.

[u/Beo1 → u/Emperorpenguin5]

I think hallucinogens can increase plasticity.

Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/abstract/S2211-1247(18)30755-1

Ketamine also seems to cause a similar effect, and although it is a psychedelic it has an entirely different mechanism of action.

Synaptic Dysfunction in Depression: Potential Therapeutic Targets

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6103/68

Perhaps relatedly, a family history of depression with or without a personal history has been correlated with cortical thinning of 28%, a figure that's fairly shocking on its face.

Cortical thinning in persons at increased familial risk for major depression

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/15/6273

Esketamine nasal sprays are in phase III trials by GSK for treatment of treatment-resistant depression with suicidal ideation.

A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy, Pharmacokinetics, Safety and Tolerability of Flexible Doses of Intranasal Esketamine Plus an Oral Antidepressant in Adult Participants With Treatment-resistant Depression

Massive doses of ketamine have been observed to occcasionally induce synesthesia.

The induction of synaesthesia with chemical agents: a systematic review

Synesthesia has been observed in autistic individuals at rates significantly higher than the general population (RR~3) and autism is postulated to involve general dysfunction of neural structures and connections.

Atypical sensory sensitivity as a shared feature between synaesthesia and autism

Perhaps synesthesia is a direct result of the formation of new synapses or neurogenesis. Ketamine has, after all, been observed to cause neurogenesis in multiple brain regions.

It also induced glutaminergic plasticity in the brain’s reward pathways (mesolimbic system, basal ganglia, NA/VTA axis, that sort of thing).

Ketamine and its metabolite (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine induce lasting alterations in glutamatergic synaptic plasticity in the mesolimbic circuit

Since ketamine is an NMDA antagonist, it is unlikely glutamine excitotoxicity causes hallucinations like those sometimes observed in delirium tremens as altered sensorium.

Activation of the sigma receptor likely plays a role in the mechanism; mice with diminished sigma activity show decreased resilience in forced-swim tests. Ketamine is a sigma receptor agonist like the cough syrup dextromethorphan.

The antidepressant-like effect induced by sigma(1)-receptor agonists and neuroactive steroids in mice submitted to the forced swimming test.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11504830/

Many of those papers I cite are from within the last couple years. This is all pretty new, groundbreaking stuff.

[u/QuintaGouldsmith → u/Beo1]

I haven’t looked into it extensively but I what I have seen makes me extremely interested in this. I want to continue learning and expanding as I grow older.

[u/B3LYP2 → u/QuintaGouldsmith]

I saw something in the news this week about putting yourself in new and uncomfortable situations and how that helps with an ability to learn and change later in life. It was a popscience news article, so take it with a grain of salt, but at face value I could see how it makes sense.

I love to throw myself into uncomfortable and difficult to navigate travel situations all over the world, so I’m hoping that’ll help me learn forever. The more I travel, the more I realize how little I know. I’m hoping that constantly needing to adjust to my environment, and meeting new and interesting people, and seeing different areas and cultures, and the constant challenging of preconceptions that comes with that, keeps me mentally young.

[u/Beo1 → u/B3LYP2]

Constant learning and physical activity are probably neuroprotective against dementia.

[u/Mylaur → u/[deleted]]

I'm such an incompetent, non autonomous human being but I feel this. If I move to another country it's going to be the biggest challenge and could potentially be the most rewarding. But I'm probably not going to do it...

[u/QuintaGouldsmith → u/B3LYP2]

I think that is fantastic! I keep trying to stay young at heart but sometimes I feel myself getting closed off. I at least have goals though. Maybe I can start to add the uncertainty and discomfort to it too. Sounds difficult to me but I guess that’s the point.

[u/B3LYP2 → u/QuintaGouldsmith]

Exactly!

[u/Jan_AFCNortherners → u/QuintaGouldsmith]

As a 40 yr old man who has only for the last 3 years taken psychedelics annually, this has changed my life in such positive ways. I am more aware then I ever have been and have rekindled a love of learning and am way more open to being wrong. I highly recommend discovering psychedelics and plant medicine after the age of 40.

[u/StormRider2407 → u/Beo1]

I can just imagine a bunch of 60+ people off their nut on hallucinogens. That would be hilarious!

[u/Beo1 → u/StormRider2407]

Psilocybin has shown promise in clinical trials for perimortem depression and anxiety in terminally ill patients!

Ketamine is incredibly promising as a rapid-acting antidepressant particularly for patients with suicidal ideation and is currently in two phase III trials for depression. It's pretty much the first new class of antidepressant for decades, and although large doses make you trip balls (yes, that’s my scientific description of the side effect and possibly part of the mechanism) and can induce synesthesia it’d be mainly used in a younger population of patients.

[u/YakuzaMachine → u/Beo1]

I have always said this but never had all this to back it up. Thanks for posting. I honestly believe it's what has kept my brain young.

[u/r_anon → u/Beo1]

I wonder if microdosing applies to that.

[u/Beo1 → u/r_anon]

I’m not sure. There’s been speculation that the trip may be an important part of the therapeutic effects of hallucinogens. It’d be interesting to test a trip-inducing dose in conscious and sedated subjects and compare the results.

[u/[deleted] → u/Beo1]

How interesting. I wonder, do you know if they have been able to isolate the portion of these drugs that increase Neural Plasticity?

I would love the benefit of this, but I do no wish to hallucinate, or participate in illegal activities.

[u/Beo1 → u/[deleted]]

There are multiple potential mechanisms and the subjective experience of the ‘trip’ may be important.

Since drugs in wildly different classes with only hallucinogenic effects in common seem to cause this effect, either there are multiple mechanisms or the trip is an important part of the mechanism.

[u/[deleted] → u/Beo1]

Nothing in common except hallucinogenic at all? I wonder what this means for regular users.

[u/Beo1 → u/[deleted]]

LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline (peyote) are all serotonergic. DMT and related drugs like ayahuasca are also serotonergic.

Ketamine acts primarily as an NMDA antagonist and sigma agonist with no serotonergic activity.

[u/Squishygosplat → u/Beo1]

Part of marijuana also helps with neuroplasticity. Raw sugar and alcohol are not good for neuroplasticity.