Instant Genius - Adventures in brain enhancement

Episode Date: March 7, 2018

This week, we chat to author David Adam about his adventures in brain enhancement, finding out whether smart drugs and electrical brain stimulation could really be a shortcut to a sharper, more focused mind. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. The first time I turned mine on, actually, I got a bit of a fright because I saw a flash of light whizzed across my vision. And it gave me a bit of a shock. And in fact, I kind of jumped and I said, whoa. And my wife was like, what are you doing, turn it off? but it was just a strange side effects of electric current, I think, stimulating the optic nerve.

So it's definitely some current does get into the brain. You're listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Focus magazine team. With the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world. Find out more at ScienceFocus.com or look out for us in your app store. Hello and welcome to this Science Focus podcast. I'm Daniel Bennett, the editor of BBC Focus magazine. In this episode, we're delving into the world of cognitive enhancement. There's a growing community of people out there who are attempting to boost their brain power by taking smart drugs

and zapping their brains with electricity. In his new book, The Genius Within, David Adams turns human guinea pig and tries out some of the these mind hacks for himself, taking the smart drug metafinil and stimulating his brain with electricity. Along the way, he attempts to cheat his way into Mensa and asks what it will mean for society if these brain enhancers one day become widespread. But first, a little disclaimer. Doctors recommend that you do not take medaphanil without an official prescription, and scientists still do not know what the long-term impacts of electrical brain stimulation might be. With that in mind, here's our staff writer James Lloyd talking to David Adam.

David, my first question for you, I guess, is could you describe to me what your book, The Genius Within, is about in a nutshell? I suppose in a nutshell it's about intelligence. What it is, how we think about it, where it comes from, how we understand it, what scientists know about it, where it is in the brain, and using all of that to then ask the question, can we change our intelligence and not through the traditional routes of, you know, education and learning and hours of practice, but are there shortcuts?

Because there are some techniques now which are being developed, which suggests that maybe we can, that maybe we can intervene and change the way the brain works. And one of the outcomes of that could be an important. in what we think of as intelligence. So am I right in thinking that these cognitive enhancers, you call them, it's the world of cognitive enhancement. They come into kind of two main categories. There's the pills and then the electrical stimulation.

Is that right? Yeah, I think it's probably broader than that. I think there are those are the two that I focused on, because those are the two that are easiest to just get hold of and try yourself. I mean, there's a huge amount of research into cognitive enhancement, and some people will tell you that brain training is cognitive enhancement. You know, that you can do certain exercises to try and improve your memory, or there are certain, you know, food that you could eat that people would say cognitive enhancers or caffeine is a cognitive enhancer. But I suppose in terms of where we are with the leading edge of neuroscience, I think they probably do come into two categories. And one is certainly pills or certainly, you know, some kind of chemical that you would swallow or usually that you would swallow or brain stimulation.

So done from outside because there are some medical techniques. where you actually surgically implant wires into the brain, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about very small, either electrical or sometimes magnetic fields being used to try and introduce small amounts of electric current into the brain. Right. And so if they work, these two different methods, what kind of benefits could brain enhancement potentially provide?

Where could it be useful and who could it be useful for? So I think it helps to break down what we think of as cognitive performance and where that is useful. Because obviously things like recall of facts and quick reasoning and being able to adapt your knowledge to a certain situation are obviously very good in the academic environment. And I don't think it's any coincidence that a lot of these, what they now call smart pills are used by students because it's seen as a way of them improving their performance on exams. So there's an obvious example, but then you could also say,

well, the same benefit could be of use to journalists, you know, trying to meet a deadline or any job or task where you have improved mental concentration or are able to ignore distractions or just to keep your mind on the job really and in fact we know that there are some sports

chess and bridge the card game ban the use of these drugs because they are believed to help in that way. So there's an example for the drugs for the stimulation. it's slightly different because what stimulation claims to be able to do is to target specific regions of the brain. And so those regions of the brain are responsible for a different number of tasks, some of which are mental, like being able to identify patterns or being able to sort of spot things that are out of the ordinary.

some of them are verbal, you know, being able to find language skills or to use language in a better way. Some of them are very similar to the sort of standard mental cognitive techniques, so memory and recall and things like that. But some are actually not really what we would think of as cognitive skills. So some of the brain stimulation aims at the motor cortex, which controls the way. way we move our arms and legs. And so in theory, you could target a part of the brain which tells you when you're fatigued and basically try and turn that message off or turn it down. And all of those different applications are being investigated. I was wondering what got you interested in cognitive enhancement. Why did you decide to write

a book about it and try it out for yourself, as we'll chat about in a minute? So what got me really interested was I wrote a book a few years ago about obsessive compulsive disorder. And after the book came out, I was invited to join a group of psychiatrists who are trying to improve treatments. And I was brought on as a patient representative. And at one of their early meetings, this came up. They were talking about they were going to try and get some research money to look at, whether electrical stimulation of the brain in this way can help patients with OCD. And then I was just really interested by that and I started looking into it.

And it turned out that a lot of these techniques were being developed as medical projects, if you like, partly because we've really hit the wall in finding new treatments for mental illnesses. But then, of course, there's a long tradition in history of stuff that sort of science and medicine develops for a specific purpose. And in this case, to treat symptoms or to treat poorly people are used by the healthy and the well to enhance themselves and take them beyond what we think of as normal limits. and the classic example of that is drugs in sport. You know, most of the drugs that are abused by athletes were originally developed as medicines. And athletes are using the same physiological effects

to not to treat any problem, but to take something which is normal and make it better than normal. And that is happening with these cognitive enhancers. They are being largely, or they were originally, or investigated as mental therapies, but because they are so easy to do and to try, and because there are a lot of people out there

who really struggle with mental conditions, partly, they just became something that people could try at home. And when they became something that people could try at home, obviously people are then going to try them for other things as well. and there's a whole community out there of individuals who make and buy this brain stimulation stuff kits and try it on themselves. And so scientists and doctors sort of like to say, oh, you know, we shouldn't we shouldn't do that. We don't know if it's safe. We don't know what the risk, the benefits are.

We don't even know if it works. So what we need to do is is not do that and leave it to us. and we'll investigate and we'll report back. But of course, just the world just doesn't work that way. People are always going to reach out for what's available. And I thought, well, that's that. So that's interesting in itself as a journalist. I mean, who's doing this and what are the benefits?

And then I just started to think about, I suppose, but if you do this on yourself and you do improve your, let's say your memory or your recall. or your ability to spot patterned or whatever it is, does that increase your intelligence? And then it became quite an interesting philosophical question because there's a very interesting history in trying to define what intelligence is. I mean, we all use the term, but it's actually quite a slippery concept to try and pin down. And I suppose it grew from there, really.

It seemed to me a book which could have some interesting neuroscience and some interesting history, particularly around intelligence and the way it's been viewed. But it would also allow me just to put some of these ideas to the test and to actually get hold of some of this stuff and see if it worked. So there's a kind of subculture of people out there then that are experimenting with these smart pills and the kind of electrical stimulation kits. Is this a subculture because the science doesn't really know how they work yet? Or is it a subculture because is it illegal?

wondering, is it something that people have to hide away because, you know, if they get found out, they'll get in trouble? I'm not sure they're actually hiding it away. I think it's a subculture just because it's small, I think. I don't think it's particularly hidden or difficult to get access to. A lot of these people, in fact, would like people to be more interested in it in the way that they're interested in it. On the stimulation side of it, certainly it's not illegal. As it stands,

there are no regulations at all. And that's something that some scientists aren't happy about. So you can go onto the internet and you can buy a kit, electrical brain stimulation kit, and they will post it to you. Now, as long as they don't make any claims

for medical benefits, there is no way at the moment of regulating it. And in fact, some of these kits have been approved by regulators to treat conditions like depression. So there's no legal problem there. I mean, I guess there's an ethical issue about who you're giving it to and who you're doing it with because I know that there are some experiments of people using these kind of headsets to try and change the way people with autism, you know, see the world. and there are reports that there are some parents who are getting these and trying them on their children.

Now, on their children who obviously have autism. Now, there's an ethical question, clearly, and a moral question. When it comes to the pills, it's kind of more of a legal gray area. It depends where you live. So a lot of these pills are medicines. So they are controlled, but they're not illegal. but you're supposed to have a prescription to be able to be able to have them. So for example, modafinil, which is the most commonly talked about smart pill. In the UK, it's a

prescription medicine. So it's not illegal to possess it without a prescription, but it is illegal to supply it. And but then in some countries, so I think in, there are some countries around the world where you can buy it in a chemist, and other countries in the world where its possession of it is illegal, the same way as other recreational drugs. So with the drugs, it's a more of a uncertain area. But that's partly just because we've had laws to try and control the use of drugs for years. And a lot of these just fall into the existing laws.

And with the brain stimulation, we've never had to think about it before. Okay. I wanted to ask you about your own adventures in brain enhancement. So in the book you talk about your own kind of self-experimentation in a way, I guess. So maybe we could talk about the electrical stimulation side of things first. How did you go about finding a way to zap your own brain with electricity? It's surprisingly easy. I just, you can go on the internet and you don't even have to look that hard.

And you can find companies which have been set up to sell what they call our consumer versions of the proper name for the technology is transgranial direct current stimulation, TDCS. And there are videos on the internet and YouTube of people constructing them themselves. And they are so basic in one respect. They're literally just a battery, a couple of wires and an electrode at the end of each wire, which you, in my case, it was a crocodile clip and I just used a household sponge, mixed some saline solution and strapped them to the outside of my head. Now, scientists will tell you that these homemade kits aren't reliable, that they don't deliver consistent amounts of current, that they're difficult to position. And that's probably true.

I mean, you can buy versions that cost, mine, my version costs, I think it was 50 pounds. I mean, you can spend 10 times that easily on a version which comes with far more precise placement of the electrodes, far more regulated current. and all that kind of stuff. And I think the scientists are probably correct in that those are better. I'm sure they are better. But equally, they're much harder to get hold of. At the other extreme,

there are companies which have almost turned these into sort of boutique devices. And you can spend $800, I think, on a version, which is sort of packaged into a set of funky, looking headphones and they are supposed to be able to, they're deliberately marketed at people who want to improve their athletic skills. And this company has given away pairs of these headphones to very high profile athletes

in the States and film them using them and so on. So, and in that case, I think you just take it out of the box and put it on your head. And in my case, I had to actually do a bit more work than that. But yeah, essentially you could just order on the internet a kit and it comes and you put it together in two minutes flat. So what's the kind of voltage that these kits are applying to your head then essentially? Mine has a switch that allows me to either use one milliamp of current or two milliamps of current, which is hardly anything. I think it's about the same as it would take to light probably the standby button. on your TV.

So physically you don't actually feel anything at all then? Actually, you do. You do. Well, I did. And I think it's quite common to feel a sensation on the outside of your scalp. Because that's obviously that's where you attach it to. I mean, you know, if you've got hair, you put it as close to the scalp as you can. So what you're supposed to be doing is sending the electricity into the brain and then out of the brain.

and back up through the other electrode. But in reality, a lot of the current just goes across the bone. It goes through the skull, because that's the easiest way for it to get out again. So, and in response, the skulls, warms and can get a bit itchy. And you can definitely feel a sort of tingle when it's turned on.

The first time I turned mine on, actually, I got a bit of a fright because I saw a flash of light and I whizzed across my vision. and it gave me a bit of a bit of a shock. And in fact, I kind of jumped and I said, oh, and my wife was like, what are you doing, turn it off? But it was just a,

just a strange side effect of electric current, I think, stimulating the optic nerve. So definitely some current does get into the brain. And when it's in there, that's when we're not quite sure what's happening. So is there any kind of theory about what sending this electricity, albeit quite a small jolt of electricity, what this is doing to the brain and how this is meant to kind of improve brain function?

Yeah, so I mean, it is a theory, but I think it's fair, I think it's, the theory is fairly well established that the, what's not agreed on is how effective the current is at doing it. But in theory, what happens is that because, as you know, neurons fire and communicate with each other with electrical impulses. And in applying a current to a certain region of the brain, the thinking is that biochemically or physiologically, you kind of soften up the neurons and make them easier to be stimulated. So it's not that, let's say you trigger, so you target the motor cortex, which we talked about before. It's not about electrical current stimulation

is not about actively making neurons fire and therefore actively increasing the amount of brain activity. It's more subtle than that. It kind of lowers the threshold at which they are fired. So it makes them easier to be fired. And that's beneath one of the electrodes. Now, the reverse is true beneath the other electrodes, the cathode, where it actually

the same or the opposite, in fact, the polar opposite physiological effect, supposedly makes those brain regions harder to activate. So it's a bit like, I suppose, sort of softening up parts of the brain and making them easier to respond to signals that they were going to get anyway. and making other regions slightly tougher to activate. So is it a kind of way of focusing the brain's attention than in one specific direction? I don't think it's about attention

because attention implies cognitive awareness. And I think it's more that let's say you, let's talk about the motor cortex again. Let's say that you are practicing a skill. you're a ski jumper. This is a real example, and you want to learn the best way of channeling all your energy into your thigh muscles as you jump, whatever it is.

Now, you know, the brain plays quite a large role in that in timing and coordinating of the muscle activity. So let's say the theory goes that we will stimulate the motor cortex while you practice that again and again and again. And then the idea is that we're somehow making the motor cortex easier to fire

more responsive to what you're doing, doing and brain regions which activate more, sort of build more connections and so you lay down, if you like, a pattern or a foundation to be able to use that to activate that jumping skill. Now, a lot of any neuroscience, listen to this will be throwing things at the screen and quite rightly so. But that is the theory anyway. As I said, we're not really sure what is going on inside the brain. But there certainly are some studies which suggest that if you target a particular part of the brain involved with a particular activity, you might be able to improve the performance of that activity.

Right. Okay. So how did you go about testing your kit then? What did you do in order to find out if it worked in your case? Well, so, I mean, we need to talk. We need to go back a step because what I wanted to do, I thought, well, how am I going to test cognitive enhancement? How am I going to test if it works? You know, we need a way of quantifying it. And I thought, well, I'll try and improve my IQ because that's a, you know, generally accepted measure of eye of, of intelligence, even if not everybody accepts the way that it's done.

And I thought, well, what's the best way to do that? You know, I mean, the IQ test that you get online are a joke, really. Equally, the proper sort of psychologists issue, IQ tests cost hundreds of pounds. They take four hours. They're really difficult to actually get access to. So that I know, I will try the Mensa entrance exam. because all you need to do is to pay 25 quid, you turn up, you do the exam,

and they give you your IQ score. And I thought, well, I'll go and I'll do that, and I'll get my IQ score, and then I will leave it a certain amount of time, and then I will do some cognitive enhancement, and I'll go back to MENSA a year later, and I'll do the same tests, and I'll get another IQ score.

Now, I mean, that's, it's not a scientific experiment, it's flawed in many ways, but it just seemed to be a useful way of trying to investigate. I mean, I thought if I do all this and there's no change in my IQ score, then there's no story there is there. So I'll do it and I'll see. And so when it came to the second Mensa test, I, for a week before it, each night I would stimulate a particular part of my brain

which had been identified in some of these academic studies as helping with sort of lateral thinking puzzles, which was one of the mentor puzzles. So which part of the brain is this? It was the anterior temporal lobes, which I targeted. So, yeah, for a week before the second test, I stimulated my own brain for, I think it was 30 minutes each night for a week. and then I went and I did the second

mentor test. Okay, well you can tell me the results maybe at the end of the interview that could be something to lead up to. I will. And I was also going to ask you about the smart pills because as well as doing the electrical stimulation, you also got hold of some of these

brain-enhancing pills, which you also took for the second menstruate test, I believe. Where did you get the pills from? I was wondering. Again, I just went onto the internet. I mean, I read up on it, and you see a lot of stories about people buying them on the internet. I knew a few scientists who researched medaphanil

and I asked them and very quickly became clear that no one was interested in handing any over. Part because as we discussed it's illegal to supply it, unless you have a prescription. I thought I could have gone to the doctor and claimed narcolepsy, you know, that seemed a bit unethical, because that's what it's given out for. It's prescribed if you have narcolepsy. So I thought, well, I'll just have to do what everyone else seems to do in this situation.

I'll just go on the internet, and I'll order some. And again, there was, in five minutes flat, you can find websites which offer to sell you medaphanel. They don't always say where it comes from. But I think I paid 60 quid, maybe something like. that and cross my fingers. But sure enough, a couple of weeks later, a brown envelope dropped through the mat, dropped to the letterbox, and there was some blister packs of what they said were modafinil. Now, of course, before I took it, and for the purposes of the book, I thought,

well, I better check it actually is madamele because it could be anything, you know, and I didn't know where the business had come from. There is a counterfeit drugs trade which just pass off anything as medicines. And this is interesting because it turns out it's a lot easier to buy modafinil on the black market than it is to get anyone to test it, to check it is what it says it is. I asked around and I contacted big testing labs and no one was interested partly because it was just me and a tiny batch.

of these big contract testing places are in, you know, they want to do with companies who are going to give them a regular supply of stuff. Eventually, and I can't, I shouldn't tell you where, but I did get a lab, a university lab, who agree. And I thought this is interesting, partly because there are all these academic papers written

about the dangers of taking this stuff and the dangers of buying it over the internet and how it could be the fake. But I couldn't find any analysis anywhere of actually anyone who'd actually tested any and found out what was in it. So I sent mine off to this lab, which I suppose technically made me an illegal supplier.

I didn't expect them to eat it after all this, though. And they tested it and they said, yes, it's methanol. It's legitimate. So then I, yeah, I mean, I took one just to see what it was like. And then on the day of that second Spencer test, I took one. The first time you swallowed one of these pills, did you notice anything? Did you get a kind of a buzz or did you find anything, things were sped up at all? Yeah, I mean, I have to be responsible and say, don't try this at home.

you know, because there are problems and there certainly risks with ordering stuff off the internet. But it was fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I've never really taken particular types of, you know, I'd never taken speed, for example. And maybe if, I think the effect is quite similar to an amphetamine. Other people describe it as a bit like taking loads of, drinking loads of strong coffee, but without the shakes and sort of the irritability that. comes with it. I just thought it was great. I felt like I could concentrate. I was aware of things. Now, of course, this could be a placebo effect. I knew that I was taking the drug. So I was, I was watching

and aware for any changes. But I definitely felt like I was much more able to focus on what I was trying to do, which at the time was write the book actually. So, yeah, and less distracted. And time just seemed to be more productive. But now I guess there are a scientist investigating these effects are there? And I was wondering, are there any areas of science or medicine where the research that's kind of coming out of the brain enhancement could, are there any, yeah, are there any areas where there could be new breakthroughs or new insights provided?

Yeah, I mean, certainly. So what's quite interesting is, so we mentioned that a lot of these scientific investigations of these techniques started life as medical projects. Well, it also works the other way around as well because there are these experiments what people have done with brain stimulation of the motor cortex to help people pedal faster or pedal harder

or keep pedaling after they're tired on an exercise bike, for example. and then some people who are working with rehabilitation of stroke victims are looking at that and saying that's interesting. Maybe we could use a similar kind of brain stimulation to try and help people learn to use their muscles again or to walk again or whatever it is because there's a way of if you can somehow divert that message from the brain that says I can't do this or do or do. turn it down, then perhaps you can help people to, to, to, to sort of rediscover the way to use those muscles. And people are trying that with, I mean, there's very, very, very, very limited numbers, but people have tried it with stroke victims with, with some seeming success. So, I mean, there are definite applications in, in that respect.

And then I think, so a big part of what they're, what they're trying to do with brain stimulation as a way is I suppose they're just partly they're testing how well they understand which parts of the brain do what and partly they can try and use this kind of information to just to get a better sense of how the brain communicates across regions you know if let's say if you if you turn down a particular part the brain and you're still able to do something just as well then that suggests either that part isn't as important as we thought, or maybe brain has a way of compensating, or maybe there's some redundancy, and actually it's controlled by three or four different parts of the print. Stuff like that. So I think it's quite useful as a research tool as well as trying to have practical applications.

Going back to the people who take these brain enhancers as a way of boosting their performance, obviously there are a lot of ethical questions around this critics might say that it could help people who don't want to put in work to somehow cheat the system or that only those who can afford these enhancers will be

given that advantage is that something we need to be wary of these more ethical questions yeah definitely and some of the ethical questions are some of the most interesting I mean I think that we only have an ethical

issue if this stuff works. So that's one of the big immediate questions. But I think the ethical arguments around this are, in a way, they're age old. You know, because there is a debate in medicine about what is

treatment and what is enhancement. So, you know, we give statins the drug to healthy, people to lower their cholesterol. And so we're intervening, which is traditionally being the goal of treatment, we're intervening to help normal people. So that's kind of an enhancement. And so it's a philosophical, but also, I think some of it comes down to how we think

about intelligence, because it's true that some people would say, it's unfair if one student takes medaphanil and another student doesn't because that's giving them a leg up. But I mean, it isn't, it isn't, you can't plant information in the brain. If you're doing a history exam, for example, you know, for medaphanil to have its effect, you have to have put the work in to know the stuff that you're trying to recall or to try and use in the exam. I mean, with maths and stuff which is more based on reasoning, then I suppose you could make the case that medaffinil gives someone a boost in that process and that is in itself unfair. But then genetics or environment also give people different reasoning skills.

Is that unfair? There are some people, circadian rhythms just dictate that some people do better in the morning than the afternoon. Is that fair? You know, what about if you can't, if you get crippling anxiety and nerves around exams and that completely affects the way that you're able to recall information or to reason. Is that fair? So I think that the ethical questions aren't necessarily restricted to this realm of cognitive enhancers, but they are quite a useful way, I think, of illustrating them and discussing them.

And I was going to ask how widespread do you think cognitive enhancement could become? Do you think, you know, fast forward 50 years, the majority of people will be doing it, or do you think it will remain a kind of a niche activity? Well, it's quite hard to get reliable numbers, but there are certainly surveys which suggest that a decent proportion of students, scientists, doctors, professionals, athletes have experimented with cognitive enhancers, usually the drugs and the pills. I honestly don't know. And I think, again, it comes back down to whether it works or not, and whether the effect is

significant. I mean, I think it's pretty unlikely that we're going to have a headset, you know, that could completely change someone's way of performing on a test. But maybe we don't need to. Maybe you just need something which is just going to help someone, you know, I don't know, to answer one or two questions correctly where they were going to do it incorrectly before. And that just tips someone onto a different degree scale

or gives them a different grade in an exam. or just helps them in that one moment where someone is judging them. Because that's one of the things about intelligence is that it only really makes sense as a relative measure. You know, whether someone is intelligent or not is less important to society than whether they are more or less intelligent than somebody else. And if you view it like that, then any kind of technique or opportunity for people to give themselves, a little boost is going to be attractive to people.

Now, whether it be used, I don't know, because one of the questions is, should it be, you know, and certainly, if there's loads of evidence that comes out in the next 10 years

that suggests that it's really effective, then I think some of the questions that we've been asking come into force. Well, you know, how do we regulate for that? How do we, there's already one university in the States,

which bans its students from taking modafin. You know, if you get caught taking a prescription drug without that prescription, you basically kicked out. That's cheating. You know, when I gave a talk about this, and I talked about medaphanal, and there was a kid in his mom at the back of the room and he went bright red, and his mom turned to him and said,

is that what you took for that math exam? And he kind of nodded, and she said, that was one you got 95% of it, wasn't it? So, you know, I think, I guess people won't advertise it if they are doing it in a way, because they think it gives them a little benefit or a step up. So, I mean, who knows? I don't know. Time or tell, I guess.

It's always difficult to future gaze. Yeah, as always. So finally, returning to your own experiments, your own adventures in brain enhancement, can you reveal whether your own trials in this had an effect on your IQ? I can't. So I have to say, you know, scientific publication, massive caveats, okay? I don't make any claims that this proves anything. I'm just going to describe what happened and then we can talk about what might be behind it. So I went for my first IQ test at Mensa and I, Mensa is, gives you two tests, the first one of which is what you, what I, anyway, would thought, thought of as an IQ test, which was sequences and objects and odd ones out and shapes that rotate and things like that, which I found quite, quite difficult. And then a second test, which is all around language. so you had to put words into sentences, you had to help to define words or show which they were most closely related to other words.

And the results were that I essentially got an IQ of 125 on the first and an IQ of 130 on the second, the language test. now I then went back a year later and having had the brain stimulation and having targeted the part of the brain which I thought might help me with the first test the abstract reasoning I mean I always thought the reason I did quite well on the language test was just because of the job that I do you know I'm a journalist I deal with work it just seemed to be, it just seemed to be less a test of intelligence than just a test of my sort of experience in a way. So I kind of focused on the first of those and I did this brain stimulation. And you had it, did you have a pill as well on the, on the morning? Yeah. I did on the morning, yes. I took a modafinil and I went and I redid a year later the Mensa test and I scored roughly the same on the language. But my IQ as measured by the.

first test had gone up to 135. So that's an increase of 10 points. That's quite an improvement then. Quite an improvement. Just about statistically significant. Could be down to random chance. Could be a placebo. Could be down to the facts of the modafinilla and the brain stimulation.

I don't know. I don't know. But what I do know, if it had come out of, if the results for the second test had been the same, then we probably wouldn't be talking because there was no effect to try and explain. There'd be no story there. Well, you know, a less interesting story, certainly.

Maybe that was part of it. I don't know. Maybe I subconsciously tried harder on the second test. Certainly, maybe I remembered how to do the questions or something like that. know, as I said, I don't claim that it's a massively important scientific finding. But, undoubtedly, my performance the second time was better. And technically, it made me more intelligent. And I guess the question is, are you going to carry on, you know, taking these

smart pills and doing this electrical stimulation? Now you've written your book. I think the electrical stimulation will go back in the box. I think so. The madame. Daffanil, I still have it. The lab didn't use that many, and I've still got a pack of them. I haven't taken one since, but I'm not ruling it out. That was David Adam there, talking about his self-experiments in brain enhancement. His book, The Genius Within, is out now. Thanks for listening to the Science Focus podcast. The March issue of BBC Focus magazine is on sale now.

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