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Nairaland Forum / Science/Technology / Is Cph4 Real (1299 Views)
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Is Cph4 Real by sarzwizard(m): 12:07pm On May 31, 2015 |
I saw Luc Besson's Lucy this weekend. The plot hinges on Lucy recieving an overdose of CPh4, a drug (natural product found in pregnancy at week 6) that accelerates brain activation. The plot is fun but full of holes. Morgan Freeman, the neuroscientist in the film, claims that we only use 10% of our brains. This simply is false. We use our whole brain--100%-- just not all at once. For example, we may use our visual system sometimes--our taste system some different time-- anger sometimes-- love other times--in any case, the whole brain gets a workout over a long enough period of time. The human brain runs hot--it is 3% of body mass but uses 20% of our energy (up to 40% during critical growth)--we could not afford 100% use continually--too much glucose. What would high continual use look like if it ever happened-- would we achieve this supposedly superhuman level-- not really-- clinically we see extreme nerve activity in epilepsy--epilepsy is uncontrolled excitation--if Lucy really had 100% of her brain continually active she would be writhing on the ground in a seizure. Indeed she would pretty quickly go into a state of status epilepticus-- which would be fatal. So the science is just wrong. Besson claims CPh4 is an actual substance. Could be. There is a class of agents called growth factors. There are numerous growth factor for neurons, as well as for glia (nerve support cells)-- examples include NGF, BDNGF; indeed there re about 100 different growth factors, and CPh4 could be one of these. The film mentions that CPh4 promotes bone growth--there indeed are bone growth factors. They are called BMPs--bone morphogenetic proteins That said, excess growth of the brain would not increase functional capacity-- we call increased brain growth cancer not superpowers -- increased bone growth would be acromegaly--not a pretty sight for Ms J--she deserves better. So, sorry all, but we are not going to get to genius level by taking a wonder-pill. In closing I might add that I have taken some purported cognition enhancers-I also have tested a number of them clinically-sorry--they just don't work. Pretty gbood movie, however. |
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