Zack Lynch is author of The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World (St. Martin's Press, July 2009).
Randall Parker blogs on an interesting development in our understanding of how pharmacological agents can inhibit and enhance human sensory system performance. Citing the researchers:
"We are at the beginning of an era where we can interact with the brain. We can apply what we know about brain plasticity to train it to alter behavior. People are always trying to find ways to improve learning. What we tested is unconscious skill learning. How far could this carry to cognitive learning?…that remains to be seen," said Dinse.
Published in Science, the research showed that stimulation combined with methamphetamines could improve tactile sensitivity of people's fingertips. It is research like this that focuses on the basic neuroscience of sensory system learning that will lead to sensoceutical breakthroughs in the coming years.