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Lumifer comments on Thermodynamics of Intelligence and Cognitive Enhancement - Less Wrong
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I don't see how
leads to the assertion that intelligence is cell-energy limited and that increasing brain metabolism (on timescales shorter than evolutionary) will lead to increased IQ. In particular, I don't know of evidence that starving people become stupid.
I think this would be difficult to observe, because starvation also increases stress hormones which increase motivation. For the most part, brain metabolism remains high in starvation, but other glucose using systems are reduced, to preserve glucose for the brain. Ketones are also used to reduce glucose demands while keeping brain metabolism high. Ancedotally, I seem to be more motivated when fasting or dieting, but more creative when eating a nutritious diet.
Metabolic syndrome, and hypothyroidism (both diseases of decreased cellular energy production) are correlated with reduced intelligence.
Citations:
Intelligence quotient in children with congenital hypothyroidism: The effect of diagnostic and treatment variables.
Pre-morbid intelligence, the metabolic syndrome and mortality: the Vietnam Experience Study.
Contribution of Metabolic Syndrome Components to Cognition in Older Individuals
Cognitive function in non-demented older adults with hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism obviously has a lot more consequences than just decreased cellular energy production and as to the metabolic syndrome, I'm not sure I'd call it a "disease of decreased cellular energy production" at all, it looks much more like a breakdown of some regulatory systems to me.
Of course, there are many ways to harm brain (=reduce intelligence) which do not involve limiting ATP in the cells.
Personally, I would expect a starving person to perform significantly worse on a math test than a non-starving person. Heck, I would expect a very hungry person to perform significantly worse on a math test than a non-very-hungry person. I've been hungry during the course of today and I think my mental performance was worse when I was hungry. When I'm hungry, it feels like my brain has an aversion to thinking hard, presumably in order to get me to preserve energy.