5 ms·

Absolute pitch is something that supposedly can only be learned before the age of 6 but the drug Valproate seems to reopen this window. https://www.ncbi.nlm.ni

Absolute pitch is something that supposedly can only be learned before the age of 6 but the drug Valproate seems to reopen this window. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848041/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848041/

rorykoehler 9y ago
I learned it as a teenager and lost it in my 20s. Like anything I learned it through practice and familiarity. Once I stopped working in music production I slowly lost my absolute pitch too. Similar to the way I used to be able to speak French but now can only string a few words together.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Similarly, I took German and French in school, and got quite good grades. However, I've not had much occasion to use either language since then. I did read some German news articles, so that part is sort of OK still. I've been with my (German) girlfriend for about a year now, and have visited her family in Germany a couple of times. It has really made me realize how much of my ability to put together a sentence in German has simply vanished over the last 15-16 years. I'm boning up using Duolingo now, because I really want to be able to have a full conversation with her (not very English speaking) family.
  - sergiosgc 9y ago
    I was having the same sort of difficulty with French. On vacation, I realized my ability to speak fluently had vanished over a decade of non-use of the language. I bought a few magazines, then a fiction book, and it's done wonders. It's much more interesting to read about something that I'm interested in than it is to go through exercises. Since what you lose over time is mostly vocabulary, reading is an efficient way to re-grok a language. You just have to get over the initial bump, where you're reading really slow because you stop frequently on unknown words.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      My girlfriend has taken Danish classes for two years, and we try to speak as much Danish as possible, with me giving her feedback on grammar and word choices. In return she sends me news and other articles in German, where I try my very best to read and understand them fully, without resorting to Google translate. So far it's going pretty well, actually :-)
  - phaedrus 9y ago
    I've had the opposite experience - once I learn something like a language, I never forget it. But people around me do, and I think it's as strange as forgetting your own name or who your family was. On the other hand, I'm mystified by how efficient "normal" people's memory for places and directions is. It takes me hours of studying a map and many repetitions of practice to learn a new route, and if I don't go a certain way (even to get to my own house or in the neighborhood I grew up in) it fades just like people describe losing language. So it's like those two capabilities are exchanged in my brain. My best friend and I took 2-3 years of German in high school, and we'd talk to each other using the German we learned. We also knew two German exchange students. In academic meets (test taking competitions) I placed in German II and my friend placed in German I. Unfortunately we had no one to speak German with after graduating high school. In all the time after high school, I only ran into one native German speaker, at some conference. I said something like, "Ja, Ich spreche ein bischen Deutsch..." and based on my accent he said, "Oh? You've been to Germany then." I shook my head, sadly no I've never been. Years later I saw my friend again and spoke some German to him, and he didn't understand me. So I used German phrases I remembered had been his "favorites", and I was shocked he even forgot those too. It felt like I was one of the Lost Boys in the movie "Hook" trying to get Peter Banning to remember he was Pan.
CuriouslyC 9y ago
I suspect that valproate works by increasing BDNF levels. Exercise also increases BDNF levels, and a diet high in fermentable fiber has been linked to increases in BDNF as well, through increased short chain fatty acid production. It is worth mentioning that valproic acid is just a branched-chain short chain fatty acid, so it is likely that many of its effects are similar to those from short chain fatty acids derived via dietary fiber fermentation.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  Wait... so exercise and beer? Heavenly. Mix in some oatmeal and eat your vegetables. Who would have guessed.

rorykoehler 9y ago

I learned it as a teenager and lost it in my 20s. Like anything I learned it through practice and familiarity. Once I stopped working in music production I slowly lost my absolute pitch too. Similar to the way I used to be able to speak French but now can only string a few words together.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
Similarly, I took German and French in school, and got quite good grades. However, I've not had much occasion to use either language since then. I did read some German news articles, so that part is sort of OK still. I've been with my (German) girlfriend for about a year now, and have visited her family in Germany a couple of times. It has really made me realize how much of my ability to put together a sentence in German has simply vanished over the last 15-16 years. I'm boning up using Duolingo now, because I really want to be able to have a full conversation with her (not very English speaking) family.
- sergiosgc 9y ago
  I was having the same sort of difficulty with French. On vacation, I realized my ability to speak fluently had vanished over a decade of non-use of the language. I bought a few magazines, then a fiction book, and it's done wonders. It's much more interesting to read about something that I'm interested in than it is to go through exercises. Since what you lose over time is mostly vocabulary, reading is an efficient way to re-grok a language. You just have to get over the initial bump, where you're reading really slow because you stop frequently on unknown words.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    My girlfriend has taken Danish classes for two years, and we try to speak as much Danish as possible, with me giving her feedback on grammar and word choices. In return she sends me news and other articles in German, where I try my very best to read and understand them fully, without resorting to Google translate. So far it's going pretty well, actually :-)
- phaedrus 9y ago
  I've had the opposite experience - once I learn something like a language, I never forget it. But people around me do, and I think it's as strange as forgetting your own name or who your family was. On the other hand, I'm mystified by how efficient "normal" people's memory for places and directions is. It takes me hours of studying a map and many repetitions of practice to learn a new route, and if I don't go a certain way (even to get to my own house or in the neighborhood I grew up in) it fades just like people describe losing language. So it's like those two capabilities are exchanged in my brain. My best friend and I took 2-3 years of German in high school, and we'd talk to each other using the German we learned. We also knew two German exchange students. In academic meets (test taking competitions) I placed in German II and my friend placed in German I. Unfortunately we had no one to speak German with after graduating high school. In all the time after high school, I only ran into one native German speaker, at some conference. I said something like, "Ja, Ich spreche ein bischen Deutsch..." and based on my accent he said, "Oh? You've been to Germany then." I shook my head, sadly no I've never been. Years later I saw my friend again and spoke some German to him, and he didn't understand me. So I used German phrases I remembered had been his "favorites", and I was shocked he even forgot those too. It felt like I was one of the Lost Boys in the movie "Hook" trying to get Peter Banning to remember he was Pan.

CuriouslyC 9y ago

I suspect that valproate works by increasing BDNF levels. Exercise also increases BDNF levels, and a diet high in fermentable fiber has been linked to increases in BDNF as well, through increased short chain fatty acid production. It is worth mentioning that valproic acid is just a branched-chain short chain fatty acid, so it is likely that many of its effects are similar to those from short chain fatty acids derived via dietary fiber fermentation.

52-6F-62 9y ago
Wait... so exercise and beer? Heavenly. Mix in some oatmeal and eat your vegetables. Who would have guessed.