This is your Brain on Drugs

Had a sleep. Can post more on this now. All those metabolic chemicals have been washed away

Speaking of chemicals… this installment: Mind Chemicals involved in learning

[cue theramin noise] 

There are 3 that were focused on in the course: Acetylcholine, dopamine and serotonin

Seratonin:

Serotonin is probably the most familiar what with all the literature and controversy controversy over the last few years about depression

It ‘strongly affects your social life” as Dr. Terrence Sejnowski mentions in a video. Social life is a key component of learning, if in no other way than the ‘diffuse’ method of assimilating information. 

It’s also related to risk taking behaviours… So serotonin affects emotions, and it has been found that emotions are intertwined with cognition and perception, and affect learning. Hey, remember trying to study that for that final exam right after breaking up with your girlfriend? No? me neither.. but still, that would suck, and I would fail.

Dopamine:

It controls motivation, and is related to ‘reward learning’. You know that squishy feeling you get in your gut when you accomplish a task? Something like that.

In learning, dopamine acts to help you predict future rewards. This can help with procrastination, working with the Pomodoro method. Study for smaller periods of time and give yourself a reward when you accomplish that task. It then becomes about being 'process based' and not ‘product’ (aka productivity). More on that later.

Acetylcholine: 

This is related to a particular neuron that is involved in neuroplasticity. This helps with long term memory. But for our purposes let’s consider that it allows your brain to change and develop as you involve yourself in new learning and focused learning.

Growth Mindset:

There’s a whole new area of thought in this thanks to Carol Dweck who’s material I ran into a few years back on a self-help blog… the jist is that you can learn over your lifetime, and the brain is designed for it. Instead of the old idea that each of us is given some set of talents and that’s it bub, that’s all, do that one thing only and then lights out.

Instead, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.