Psychedelics and Critical Learning Periods Wired Magazine

https://www.wired.com/story/the-psychedelic-scientist-who-sends-brains-back-to-childhood/ 

Sorry about this one. I just read this amazing article in Wired, and I just had to capture what it meant. So . . . a blog entry as a magazine article review. Sorry about that. Please just ignore it if it is outside of your interests. Thanks for your forbearance.

Read The Article

The author does a masterful job of weaving personal reflection and insight into this discovery. Go read it now, and then come back here and see if this resonates with you.

Critical Learning Periods

Research indicates that humans have a very few critical learning periods, when our brain is tuned to learn new things. Young childhood is clearly one of them. Neuroscientist Gül Dölen may have found a way to open up critical learning spaces in our adult brains using psychedelic drugs. If this proves to work, it can be used for all manner of therapy and learning opportunities. A few examples:

• Length of learning window. The initial research seems to indicate that this “learning window” or “critical period” is not just during the actual drug experience, but it endures for some longer period of time. 

• Languages - we know young children’s brains are tuned to learn languages. If this therapy can reopen that critical learning period, it would be very helpful for adult learning of all kinds.

• Personality Disorders - this is not cited in the article, but it is well document that if young children do not have a caring adult in their lives before age two, they frequently have a personality disorder, which relates to their relationships with other people. They seem to miss acquiring the cues of empathy and how people form relationships. This might offer those individuals a new lease on life.

• Stroke - after a stroke, the brain trauma seems to open a brief window when the victim can regain the use of the damaged brain function, if they do so within a very narrow window of time. This therapy could open a much longer window.

• Addictive Behavior. The use of psychedelics in a carefully conducted coaching session seems to be effective for many people to help cure addictive behavior. It raises their awareness and sense of values to a higher level, where they see and feel the addictive behavior as a problem they can resolve.

• Risk of abuse. As with any treatment the risk of misuse for this type of intervention is very high. It is possible that some of the “strong leaders” of cult behavior actually understood this and used substances to encourage their flock to be more easily persuaded about their world views.

• Autism. This problem might be the result of some failed biology at an early age. One researcher had identified a compound that should have assisted autistic individuals to overcome some of the problem, but it did not work. The thought now is that the compound might work if the person can be reset to the critical learning point for this problem.

More Detailed

Critical Learning Periods

It is well documented by now that young children have a unique ability to acquire some skills early in life, and that this ability fades with time. The brain in the young child is tuned for these tasks, such as learning to communicate with language. We learn to walk, and see and hear, and to bond with other people. Those are all acquired skills! When that has been accomplished, the brain removes all of that capacity and gets on with a more efficient mode of operating for adult life. The number of neurons actually changes as a result. 

Critical periods are well known to neuroscientists and ethologists, because they lay the groundwork for a creature’s behavior. They are finite windows of time, ranging from days to years, when the brain is especially impressionable and open to learning. 

Just so, young birds are uniquely equipped to learn the song of their species at birth, so that they can participate in their species mating and other rituals. 

As the article points out, many other things about humans are learned in these early years. This would include basic values about human empathy and ethics, perfect pitch, etc.

We also know that a serious investment in meditation or mindfulness can reap great rewards in changing one’s values, motivation, happiness and fundamental view of life. Some neuroscientists have been experimenting with psychedelics as a shortcut to accomplishing these same objectives. 

Social Reward Experiment

There is a well established experiment where mice are exposed to a stimulating chemical and exposed to a certain type of bedding. When the chemical is withdrawn, they continue to prefer that type of bedding - it provides some reward to their brains. There does not appear to be a critical period for this cocaine reward. But if you move the mice from cocaine to socializing with other mice the bonding only occurs when the mice are young. An adult mouse is not open to this socializing conditioning. 

The same thing was proven with octopuses, which are notoriously anti-social. Getting them accustomed to socialization at a very young age also tuned them to see that as a pleasurable experience. (If you want a unique experience about an octopus, watch this movie: My Octopus Teacher. We sentient animals are all priceless.)

Young mice—especially adolescent ones—strongly preferred hanging out on the bedding they associated with their friends. The adult mice didn’t seem to give a damn about the composition of their bed. They weren’t connecting it to the pleasures of company. The younger mice, in their highly impressionable state, were. “The social world is something that you learn, just like the visual or olfactory world,” Dölen explains.

But if you give the adult mice a bit of MDMA, they are just like the younger mice in learning this pleasurable connection. It turns out that many drugs have that same effect on adult mice - but NOT cocaine! 

Those contextual details explain why most people with PTSD are not miraculously cured after partying all night at an MDMA-fueled rave, but why, in the supportive environment of a therapist’s office, the same drug permits them to undertake the cognitive reappraisal needed to heal. It also tantalizingly suggests that different critical periods could be opened—not just for PTSD, but for stroke, vision or hearing correction, or acquiring a new language or skill, or any number of other things—simply by changing what a person is doing while on the drug. 

This phenomenon is not just at the level of the brain’s neurons, but it extends down to the level of gene expression. 

Strokes

Stroke patients have only a short window of time in which they can regain even some of what they’ve lost. Immediately after a stroke, a critical period naturally opens—and then closes some months later. No one knows why this is, but Dölen has a hunch: Just as pandemic-era isolation caused a “radical destabilization” of the social world, a stroke causes a radical destabilization of a sufferer’s motor world. That person’s motor cortex is no longer receiving information from their muscles. So a sudden change in the motor world—a stroke—could fling open a critical period for motor skills. Dölen thinks that these naturally occurring critical periods are the brain’s way of trying to adapt to profound, existential change. 

Downsides

As with any new therapies, there may be potential downsides from this kind of prolonged new critical learning period. That is for future research.

Race and Transgender

Writing

It has taken me some time to figure out how this “writing” stuff works. I am pretty good with the English language - but not as good as a ChatBot. And there is a Google one sitting on this very page as I write, offering to help me. Thanks, Buddy, but not this time.

Generally I get an idea from somewhere - and I don’t want to lose it. I want to develop it, and ultimately, to share it. The ideas do not show up fully formed. They ruminate around in there a bit, before the AHA moment, or the “That’s It” hits me. The way our brain works, unless I do something concrete with that - like write it down - they just disappear into that miasma of my stream of consciousness.

Mindfulness helps, as I’ve said more than once in this blog. On occasion, one of the distractions that my attempt at Transcendental Meditation hits is an old idea that comes back to haunt me. I slide it away, as I have been trying to do for decades, but there is this little trace of it left. If I am lucky, the next time I sit down to write - it will reappear. 

A ToDo list also helps. I have one just for “writing.” If I am listening to a podcast, visiting with a friend, watching a TV show and that GREAT idea pops up, I try to capture the essence of it in the writing todo list. And then I try to translate that scribble later. 

Article on MN Transgender Care

To the topic of this piece - Race and Transgender. There was a piece in a recent local newspaper, The Pioneer Press about the number of young people and their parents that are coming to MN for transgender care and therapy, because it is banned in other states. They are overwhelming our providers.

https://www.twincities.com/2023/08/15/mn-states-transgender-health-care-demand/ 

In many states, it is now illegal to treat minor children who are transgender. As Jude and I were both reading the article this morning, my lovely wife commented that she thinks of this problem as similar to abortion. She means that it is HER body, and she should be the only person to decide what kind of care or intervention it needs. Transgender is very similar in that respect. The government and people with minority religious belief systems should not be able to dictate that level of care. But the issue is complicated if the patient is a minor, and their parents must somehow be engaged in the discussion. I made some other comments about that, which I will share below - and she carried it to the RACE issue. That got my attention.

Writing Preamble

Another thing I have only recently learned. A very well crafted story or article often starts quite a distance away from the actual topic. The author starts with a story - amazing. The story entices you in - you want to see where it is going. The story ends up in a place that lets the writer introduce a really new idea. You are prepared to listen to it because of the preamble. My propensity has always been - get to the point right away. Say it as briefly and clearly as you can. And then maybe come back and flesh it out a bit. I think that comes from a business writing class that I took. The primary message of that class was: Say It In One Page. I wrote a summary of that class for the senior staff of our division - which was on one page! AND I have just subjected you to an overly long preamble to this whole idea. Sorry about that. Let me know which way it cuts - good or bad. Thanks.

Transgender Care

As we were talking about the article on transgender medical care, I voiced my opinion to Jude that I think the whole idea that these young people need to do anything to their bodies is just terrible. We know that gender is not black and white - either / or. It is really a spectrum, with the majority of us in the middle where we identify as male or female. But a some of us, 5% or so, simply do not have that majority self image. And there are many who do not have a “normal” body. 

It may not conform to the norm, but it is THEIR body, and it probably functions just fine as a human organism. Why on earth should the feel compelled to change it? Because some of us think they are “not normal?” I think it is criminal that these young people even think they need to physically alter their body just to fit into our biased world. We need to educate them and ourselves that any creative combination of gender or sex or whatever you want to call it is just fine. If it proves to be a physical handicap, like a missing limb or something, then I think surgery and adaptive technology would be great. But it scares me that a very capable person feels they must alter the physical appearance of their body just to make other people think they fit in. 

Let’s do it the other way around. Let’s help them understand that they are such a priceless and unique individual, that we want them to just remain who and what they are. They should not do physical violence to a perfectly functioning physical body because of social prejudice. That seems crazy to me.

Race and Transgender Care

This is where Jude drew the “race card” on me. She pointed out that we did exactly that with the racial blend of our family. We formally decided that we were simply going to ignore the idiocy of racism with our children. We never discussed it, we never pointed it out - we did our best to ignore the idiocy of our larger society. 

And how did that turn out? Well, she would probably do it differently now. We would definitely NOT try to change their racial heritage or appearance. What we might have done is to expose them more fully to their heritage, and to the negative and positive consequences that other people might bring to bear as they went into the world. 

So I would advocate that our friends with transgender children might try to persuade their children that there is nothing wrong with them that they need to change. But that is a serious challenge in today’s world. As Jude says, that would be the ideal world. That was our view of the racist world we live in. I would never mandate that kind of decision to any transgender person or their parents. But I think it should be part of their counseling and preparation or “therapy.” There is NOTHING wrong with them. They do not need to change anything in their biology. But we understand that they might find life more fulfilling and tolerable if they do change their physical appearance. 

As Jude says, it is like abortion. It should be that person’s choice as to how they want to configure their body. No majority or minority driven by some religious commitment should be able to mandate that. 

Adoption and Race

Our family is multiracial. I know RACE is not a real thing in biological terms, but it is very real in the cultural world of the present United States. My lovely wife and I have talked about this quite a bit, and we have explored it with other people who have a similar background - a multiracial family. If you want to see an OLD picture of us, look here:  https://sites.google.com/site/carlscheider/biographies. 

My wife was adopted. Recently, thanks to DNA tracing, she has discovered some of the details of that adoption. Her biological mom lived in a small town in MN, and she had a liaison with her biological father, who then enlisted in the army and was sent to Europe. This was 1940. Her mom was relocated to a home for unmarried women in the Cities. She gave birth to this beautiful little girl, and gave her up for adoption. Our suspicion is that her father never knew about her. Her mom later married and had a rather large family in this same small town.

Jude’s adoptive parents, Wayne and Glendora, were unable to have children, so they adopted her and her two brothers. I have pictures of her at that age with her dad. You can see by the look in his eyes that this priceless little bundle was beyond value. She was much loved. When we wed, our plan was always to adopt. It so happened that Jude is made to have babies. The first two came easily and quickly - our biological sons. Oddly enough, they are somewhat of a combination of the two of us, as far as temperament, abilities, preferences. They are very different from each other, but I have to confess that I like the combinations they present better than the one that I was gifted with at birth. I tell people all the time: “It is not my fault. They came that way.” My wife’s genetic contributions far outshine mine. IMHO.

So we had two very young boys, and we contacted Catholic Charities about adoption. They gave us a wonderful case worker, Eve Forseth. She approved of our nascent family, and she asked us: “What kind of child are you looking for?” That struck us as odd - we have a choice? What kind of choices do people make? She explained that there were many children with some disability - mental or physical - that needed homes. We talked about that and decided that we were probably not up to that challenge. I hold people who can do that in the very highest regard - but that was not our gift. Then she asked about race. That also struck us oddly. We had not actually thought about that, but we were clearly open to any kind of racial history - not a problem. At that point in our lives, we had many friends and acquaintances from all over the world, from many different cultures. Race would not be an issue for us.

Long story, but we ended up with 3 adopted children from racial backgrounds different from our own. No one educated us on any of this. We were literally making it up as we went along. Two of our daughters are of White / Black heritage, and one son is from Vietnam. Those are stories for another time. 

When we thought a little about this, we consciously chose to simply ignore their racial heritage, period. They are our children. We love them. We are never going to comment on the color of their skin, or their hair, or anything like that. We have very good friends who have a very similar family blend. It makes sense that they are good friends. I don’t recall that we ever talked about this with them - but I have the sense that they had arrived at the same conclusion. Race simply is not important.

We have had other acquaintances with adoptive children who seemed to focus on the whole idea of interracial adoption. They seemed to be proud of it. They advocated on behalf of it, etc. We have never felt that way about it. This is just normal. What’s the big deal? They would describe their “adopted” children. It would never occur to me to describe one of my kids that way.

The Talk

We never had “the talk.” My thinking at the time was, if one of my kids encounters racism, I want their reaction to be: “What is WRONG with that person?” We never prepared them for those encounters. Over the years they have actually hidden many of those encounters from us. We have only heard a few stories. At one point, my daughter was hired to be a “racial tester” for a firm that was evaluating businesses to determine the bias of their employees. They would send her into a company - like a new car dealer, or a rental apartment. Then they would send a White woman with a similar background. They were both very capable, college educated adult women. The treatment she got was unbelievable. When she told me some of those stories, I would get so angry that I wanted to find those sales people and give them a thrashing.

My daughter once told me about a shopping experience she had in a large retailer, where one of the staff was obviously following her around the store. When she got to the checkout with her items, she announced to the cashier that she had wanted to buy these things, but because of the obvious racial bias of the company as evidenced by the individual following her about, she no longer wanted to do business there. Thank you very much.

My wife recalls the one time my brother Mick talked about the race of our kids. He was the union shop steward, so he had some margin of respect among his fellow employees. He said whenever they were saying racist things, like using the “N” word, he would have to hold himself back. He said that knowing and loving our daughter made him hyper sensitive to that kind of prejudice. My brother was not a gentle man. He was big and tough and spoke his mind. If something disturbed him, you would know about it. This was a major step for him.

Racial Blindness

I recall one time when Jude’s dad was asking our children about the two boys that were part of our friends’ family. He asked, “Which one is John, and which one is David?” The kids all chimed in and said, David is a bit larger and has curly hair. John is more slight and has straight hair. I was dumbfounded, but I had to think that was the best answer they could have given. It simply did not occur to them to use a racial category to identify those two boys. 

On another occasion, my daughter had broken up with her long standing high school boyfriend who happened to be White. The boys came home one day to announce that she had a new boyfriend. They told us his name was Calvin. They said that I would like him, and that he played basketball. That evening, in bed, I asked Jude - do you think Calvin is Black? She said she had no idea, and we were never going to ask the boys that question. Period! 

Gender Blindness

I am NOT racially blind. I simply cannot ignore it. It is part of my entire life history. It would be a lie to pretend that I am racially colorblind. But I think it is just barely possible to raise children that way. I am going to hold out that our effort there was worth the risk.

So I am going to hold out the hope that our world can in fact achieve gender blindness, just as it might some day achieve racial blindness. I intend to live as though I have that skill - even though it is not in me. We can only do what we can. So I wish all of those young transgender people well. But I sincerely hope that someone, somewhere helps them understand that they are NOT the problem - it is the rest of us that need to change.

What do you think?