Will my values change in ways that they are unlikely to change without the changes to my brain? By analogy, drinking alcohol has temporarily affects on my judgement because it affects my brain chemistry and on the whole it makes my judgement worse (although sometimes it has removed unhelpful inhibitions).
To me the premise that the possibility of changing my brain through fasting is unquestionably a silver bullet free of tradeoffs is suspect. Or to put it another way, the fact that fasting had a particular effect does not imply that effect is a positive one.
Furthermore, hunger is a strong motivation toward behaviors that are ethically suspect in its absence. A full belly is a rung up Maslow’s hierarchy.
People who spend their days starving mice at scale have incentives to interpret that starvation in positive ways. It would be hard to rationalize starvation and vivisection otherwise and still consider one’s life choice reasonable and ethical. Hence, I am skeptical of acting in the ways an optimistic interpretation of the report suggests. YMMV.
I don't think that we need to apply a value to neurogenesis and I do not think the authors do either except that it seems to be correlated with other quote good behaviors like exercise.
Presumably neurogenesis is occurring all the time and is restricted to a small set of regions in the brain and the new neurons form in just those very strict set of regions. Those neurons are not moving to the neocortex, just a few millimeters within the dentate gyrus. That is to say even robust neurogenesis is not likely to change your mind, cognitive experience, personality or intelligence in any measurable way.
I think the primary "function" attributed to adult hippocampal neurogenesis is improved memory.
But the parent comment is unfair insofar as scientists don't randomly chose to food deprive or "vivisect" animals because they think it's intrinsically fun. Running these experiments requires a huge amount of annoying busy work that I can't imagine anyone choosing to do without being paid or having some other motive.
In particular, the reason intermittent fasting is studied is because there's a large and increasing body of research that suggests that it may be of benefit to a wide variety of health measures.
Sorry for not being clear. I don’t think people starve and vivisect mice for fun. And I agree that there being money in it is much of the moment to moment motivation for the moment by moment steps that are necessary for it to happen. Putting a happy p-hacked face on the process is how ordinary people rationalize what they are doing as something other than what it is.
The business of cutting apart animals and looking at the insides claim revealed knowledge isn’t new. The Romans called it “haruspicy” and also built wealthy bureaucratic institutions in service of narratives useful to the powerful.
Contemporary interest in fasting research is helpful to those who find advantage in moralizing upon obesity. Intermittent fasting is a virtue reserved for those with food security. It’s attractive to people whose socio-economic status insures that going hungry is a choice and a display of will power. Not weakness. The conclusion that it makes such people smarter is self serving.
The preponderance of health evidence is that starvation is detrimental to human health and creates long term cognitive problems. But lab mice are an industrial product and labs are industrial institutions and the money keeps flowing so long as the results are acceptable to those providing it. That’s the way it has been for millennia.
To me the premise that the possibility of changing my brain through fasting is unquestionably a silver bullet free of tradeoffs is suspect. Or to put it another way, the fact that fasting had a particular effect does not imply that effect is a positive one.
Furthermore, hunger is a strong motivation toward behaviors that are ethically suspect in its absence. A full belly is a rung up Maslow’s hierarchy.
People who spend their days starving mice at scale have incentives to interpret that starvation in positive ways. It would be hard to rationalize starvation and vivisection otherwise and still consider one’s life choice reasonable and ethical. Hence, I am skeptical of acting in the ways an optimistic interpretation of the report suggests. YMMV.