Isn't weightlessness the obvious choice?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Joe Strout wrote:
>
> kenjopp wrote:
>
> > It strikes me as shortsighted and provincial that space colony scenarios
> > always (seemingly, at least) involve centrifugal force or other
> > simulation of gravity.
>
> They involve biological bodies, atmosphere, and radiation shielding too,
> all of which will probably be pass someday.
>
> But you have to take baby steps.
>
> > http://www.starlarvae.org/Space_Brains_Space_Migration.html
>
> This article is an interesting mix of sensible ideas (mostly in the
> first half) and nonsense (mostly in the latter half). I have some
> experience (and a degree) in neuroscience. If you have any evidence at
> all that weightlessness causes "brains to develop with unusual vigor"
> (whatever that means), please cite it.
>
> Best,
> - Joe
>
The claim about neurological enrichment in weightlessness rests on studies of neuroplasticity. More synaptic connections survive in a developing brain when that brain mediates more complex sensorimotor experiences. Because Earthboundedness constrains physical movement, it constrains brainpower.

Weightlessness will preserve connections that otherwise are lost when brains develop on Earth, because weightlessness enables greater freedom of movement.

Consider a newborn baby: basically a beached cetacean, somersaulting inside the aquatic womb one minute, immobilized by gravity as soon as it's born. Then it begins the regimen of roll over, crawl, stand, walk. In weightlessness, the neonate skips the beached stage, and the growing child skips the stages that normally would follow. Instead the developing brain gets to enjoy 3-D freedom of movement throughout its entire life. Hence, neurological enrichment.

See details at
http://www.starlarvae.org/Space_Brains_The_Enrichments_of_Weightlessness.html

and

http://www.starlarvae.org/Space_Brains_Neural_Neoteny.html