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This maps with experience taking the anti-seizure medication Topamax in college. I trialed for a month it as an off-label migraine preventative on recommendati
by mastercheif 16d ago
This maps with experience taking the anti-seizure medication Topamax in college.
I trialed for a month it as an off-label migraine preventative on recommendation from my neurologist.
Topamax can dampen neuronal activity in the language area of the brain for some people.
It was a terrifying experience, but it was also a valuable one as it changed the way I view intelligence.
About 10 days in, my writing and speech skills had devolved to that of a primary school aged child. I tried to type a text message and struggled to come up with simple words like “and”. My speech slowed down considerably.
The terrifying thing was that my internal world was still as complex and meaningful as it was before. All of the emotions I felt were real and legitimate. My cognition outside of language was intact, I could do math just fine and conceptualize and abstract problems.
In spite of this, I was unable to convey what I was feeling and thinking to the outside world. It felt like I was trapped inside my own body.
After recovering, my intuitive understanding of the link between language and intelligence was changed forever.
See the following for more info on Topamax/Topiramate language impairment: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10072-008-0906-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10072-008-0906-5
- thejokeisonme 16d agoWas your understanding of language also impaired?
- mastercheif 16d agoNo, it was not. My ability to process information aurally, textually, and visually was unaffected.
- rixed 16d agoDid you write more about that experience somewhere? This seems to corroborate my feeling that aptitude with language is a very poor proxy for intelligence, although it's often used as one. My own experience is that I'm less struggling to find the right words and sounds more clever at the times when my brain is actually empty and I'm "not there", and at the contrary the more "self-aware" I am and the more I struggle to articulate my thoughts, as if my brain (or ego?) was stepping in the way and slowing me down by trying to supervise what I'm saying too closely, making me sounds dumb.
- mastercheif 16d agoI have not, but I really should consider it, so thanks for the suggestion. Even if just for my own processing. The phenomena you’re describing sounds similar to how I experience ADHD in conversation.
- jdub 16d agoScary, but cool! To clarify "cognition outside of language" and "unable to convey"... did it purely affect external communication? Were you able to think "in language"? Do you tend to rely on thinking "in language" (whether inner monologue, describing problems like drafting prose, or otherwise)?
- mastercheif 16d agoMy internal dialog was impacted, not just external. To get retrospectively nerdy, it felt like switching from a raw text based lookup system to a knowledge graph / vector search. Instead of accessing memories / concepts at a raw text level, I was pulling up lots of metadata and making links to these fusiform concepts that it was invoking. I would then try to find the words to describe what the links were conveying.
- manvillej 16d agoThat’s fascinating. I know there are a few different kinds of “thinkers” out there. Conceptual, visual, language. I wonder if temporarily devolving language center capability would change someone’s thinking model
- laxpri 16d agoYou are very important research subject, pls share more about your experience to the world , or try to be part of some research/project.