by BioTech start-ups sell Brain Performance supplements, which are called nootropics and devices such as “neurofeedback chip straps” for hundreds of dollars. Your promise? Strengthening our cognitive function and brain chemistry against the sensory overloading of modern life. One of the big players is Mendi, a Swedish biotech company financed by NASA, whose brain training headset promises to improve the focus, mood and sleep and reduce stress.
This targeted approach to cognitive improvement is referred to as “neurohacking”, the latest microtrend in the biohacking area. It has a number of top -class fans. Deliversary master Bryan Johnson is as fascinated by his spirit as his body. He recently was the BBC Lara Lewington and encouraged her to try his helmet of light therapy. “This therapy can improve the concentration, calm, sleep and the white substance of hyperint intensity,” he says before the classic restriction in a video: “There is no evidence of this, so we experiment.”
Biohacking was always at a funny intersection: a Venn diagram, the sub -regions of which overlap with conspiracy, entrepreneurship and Hollywood (Johnson was photographed last week at the Paris Hilton birthday party). Even the word “hacking” is indelibly associated with the great technology and corporate culture.
Neurohacking changes our definition of intelligence towards something more holistic. It is of the opinion that mind and body are one: that a strong brain in an older person is senseless when his body is frail. You can do as many crossword puzzles as you want, as well as you can spend the whole day with strength training, but one without the other is futile. This lens treats the brain like a muscle – which it is not. But like an actual muscle – biceps, abdominal, knee tendons – it can be sanded and consolidated.
Rehabilitation for the brain
As in other areas of fitness, there is money to make. Crossword – even cryptic – are not enough to keep the brain in good nick. At least that’s the news that Biotech sends.
You also send another message. That our brain does not deal with the hypertentive reality of modern, technically connected life. Neurohackers believe that the information era has damaged our brain chemistry more than ever. “We take up more information in a week than our ancestors in your entire life,” claims a Mendi video.
These new technologies tell us that we should slow down. Take a break from our spreadsheets, calendars and news feeds. They demand that we point our attention to different data points instead: that in our head. From there you promise to rebuild our cognitive skills and strengthen our resistance to the flood of the information that we cannot escape. This is a process that is referred to as a neuronal rewiring or in layperson, brain rehab.
The Mendi headband is a futuristic device that measures blood flow in response to neural activity. It offers this through a simple exercise. A app connected to the headset has a game in which the user has to push a ball up a ball for three minutes – Matilda style. Ideally, the ball just rises and rises, even though it begins to decrease when your focus falsifies. The aim is to stimulate the oxygen in the direction of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain, which is responsible for cognitive functions such as planning, decision -making and problem solving. This is a process known as “neurofeedback brain training”. Some like the idea that even more technology is the solution to our technically induced overstimulation, and at £ 259 the headset is not cheap. But if you consider that the average attention span has shrunk to sub-gold-fish level per year, Mendi’s offer could prove to be invaluable.
A not so new idea
However, neuroplasticity does not have to break the bank. It is often said that technology has changed our brain irreparably, but it is reading – especially reading fiction – that re -wires it. Discravilating diagrams and analysis of characters and topics stimulate the prefrontal cortex and improves memory, attention and critical thinking. Our brain is more resistant than biotech companies that would believe us, and you don’t necessarily need a group of advisors from Silicon Valley to help you “rationalize”. People have been doing this themselves for over 150,000 years when they invented the first foundations of language and switch from intuitive thinking to abstract conceptualizations. This new way of thinking rationalized our neuronal paths and led to smaller brains that are more complex argumentation.
Organic and neurohacking are based in evolutionary science, so it is a bit ironic that they underestimate how adaptive we are. Yes, the Mendi headband could help strengthen our brain. But don’t forget the simplest neurohack: a good old -fashioned novel.
