Psychedelics & Learning - Huge Opportunities

Psychedelics Reopen the Social Reward Learning Critical Period.

This scientific study published in Nature shows that during specific periods of brain development, the nervous system is more malleable for behavioral changes. These windows of time are called ‘critical periods.’

I’ve been thinking about how we medicate kids for ‘learning disabilities’ like ADD/ADHD with amphetamines. Wouldn’t it be more powerful if we considered the upside of learning enhancement instead?

An example of a ‘critical learning period’ that everyone understands is language learning. The ‘critical period’ of learning for language pronunciation is narrow. It ends around age 7 or 8. If I tried to learn Russian today and devoted myself to the study full-time, it’d be unlikely that I’d ever achieve a perfect accent. 

What if you could re-open different learning periods beyond behavioral modification? We could have ‘learning enhancement' drugs instead of drugs to treat ‘learning disability’. It’d be far more productive to focus on the strengths and figure out learning plans accordingly than to manage symptoms focused on supposed weakness. 

Also worth noting, the chart below shows the impact of LSD last much longer than Ketamine, which is currently widely approved for medicinal use.