[Link] Valproic acid, a drug for brain plasticity

NPR reports on a study giving volprioc acid to adults and training them on pitch (singing):

Hensch is studying a drug which might allow adults to learn perfect pitch by recreating this critical period in brain development. Hensch says the drug, valprioc acid, allows the brain to absorb new information as easily as it did before age 7.

"It's a mood-stabilizing drug, but we found that it also restores the plasticity of the brain to a juvenile state," Hensch tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer.

Brain plasticity is useful for a whole lot more than learning pitch. As the article notes it would be invaluable for training one's ear to pick up sounds of foreign languages, but also it seems reasonable to this commentator that high levels of plasticity during rationality training or other forms of self-development would result in more transformative results.

NPR reports on a study giving volprioc acid to adults and training them on pitch (singing):

Hensch is studying a drug which might allow adults to learn perfect pitch by recreating this critical period in brain development. Hensch says the drug, valprioc acid, allows the brain to absorb new information as easily as it did before age 7.

"It's a mood-stabilizing drug, but we found that it also restores the plasticity of the brain to a juvenile state," Hensch tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer.

Why is that hilarious? It is in line with the studies I've read. I'm on my phone so it is a little hard to find cites. With focused study and the proper learning environment adults achieve fluency faster, but it us rare that they ever achieve a native like accent. Children with exposure under the age of 11 typically have no trouble in the other hand

Children with exposure under the age of 11 typically have no trouble [achieving a native-like accent] in the other hand

I started learning French at 10, and Spanish and Italian at 12, so this seems to predict I would have a native-like accent in French but not in Spanish or Italian. As a matter of fact, I do think my accent is slightly better in French, but I don't think the difference is large enough to count as "native-like" versus "non-native-like", and furthermore I suspect it has more to do with patterns of study and practice wel... (read more)

0Douglas_Knight12y

The quote is about fluency, not accent. The first sentence is correct. The second sentence is the hilarious part; I read it as "linguists are generally idiots." It is harder for me to survey linguists than the literature, but in my limited attempt, it appears correct.

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[Link] Valproic acid, a drug for brain plasticity

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[Link] Valproic acid, a drug for brain plasticity

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