5 replies to this topic

[UdonNoodles]

Hello, I had an idea for a personal project I would like to pursue and I wanted feedback from others before I dive in because I'm kind of new the field of biology. It occurred to me that though that since astrocyte to neuron reprogramming is possible[1][2][3] (using viral gene therapy) and astrocytes can be made proliferative[4][5] it should be possible to permanently increase someone's intelligence albeit at the risk of cancer.

 

The idea would be to slow  proliferation of astrocytes using FGF or VEGF or an NF1 inhibitor and then occasionally using gene therapy to convert some of those astrocytes into functional neurons. This would also cause some astrocyte apoptosis which might keep the cell count from getting too high. Also if a retrovirus was used for the conversion the proliferative astrocytes in particular would targeted for conversion so it is less likely to disrupt (and rather would supplement) existing brain functions.

 

I'm probably going to try this out anyways using a lot of rats and then myself. I just wanted to hear how crazy people think I am before I do it. And if they have any advice for things I could do it increase the probability or speed of success.

 

References:

1. https://www.nature.c...1583-019-0227-0

2. https://www.scienced...525001619304046

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC3967760/

4. https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC2760350/

5. Transforming growth factor-beta 1 in the rat brain: increase after injury and inhibition of astrocyte proliferation.

[orion22]

wow i just realised we can fire all the idiots on google people working on quantum computers and replace them with sperm whales they will do they job done in in half the time 

 

 

Edited by orion22, 24 April 2020 - 04:18 PM.

[UdonNoodles]

Hahaha, well we have much higher quality brain cells than sperm whales. And most of their brains are dedicated to managing their massive bodies. Regardless you can't deny that there was a turning point in human evolution that not only dramatically increased the quality of our brains but also the size. Also current AI research has demonstrated you can easily make most neural networks better by just increasing their size (assuming the underlying algorithm & data is appropriate for the given task).

 

I've attached a figure by Andrew Ng (founder of google brain), describing the matter (from his Coursera course).

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by UdonNoodles, 24 April 2020 - 05:31 PM.

[Tobeornottobe]

The influence of environment and origin on brain resident macrophages and implications for therapy

[UdonNoodles]

The influence of environment and origin on brain resident macrophages and implications for therapy

Could you explain what you mean? I'm sorry I feel like I'm missing context.

[Tobeornottobe]

Do not do gene therapy on yourself.  CRISPR/Cas9 has many off target sites and can cause cancer.   These are not the droids you're looking for.