Cooling the brain to boost human IQ

I am sharing this information due to Eliezer mentioning in a recent interview:

Only cognitively boosted humans have a chance at aligning AI
Cooling the brain through methods like water cooling is one of our best chances to boost human intelligence

Brains and computers both generate heat as a byproduct

Think of the brain as a powerful computer with a small heat sink. Especially in small animal brains. Kiyatkin explains this well:

We found that brain temperature was consistently higher than arterial blood temperature, and that brain temperature increased prior to, and to a greater extent than … arterial blood… local metabolic consequences of … neural activity appear to be the primary source of increases in brain temperature.

Rodents brains can heat up quickly—under relatively normal situations like social interaction, their brain temperature can increase as fast as 1 degree over 5 minutes. Such heating rates, if sustained over 15-20 minutes, could cause permanent brain damage or spontaneous death.

Kiyatkin details how brain damage rates rise as brain temperatures increase:

The numbers of albumin‑ and GFAP‑positive cells strongly correlate with brain temperature, gradually increasing from ~38.5 °C and plateauing at 41–42 °C… Brains maintained at hyperthermia also showed… structural abnormalities… suggesting acute brain edema.”

He then details what happens once the brain crosses its upper limit temperature threshold:

At 29 °C, MDMA pushed temperatures in the brain to its biological limits (>41 °C), resulting in fatalities in most (83%) tested animals.

Dr. Kiyatkin found that rodents drop dead spontaneously from overheated brains if they take MDMA + are housed in hot climates + are exposed to highly stimulating situations like other rodents to mate with. And this occurs within a few hours and with a 90% fatality rate. (Am I allowed to link to Sci Hub full text here?)

Brains can generate heat much faster than they can remove heat

The research seems fairly clear that rodent brains can heat an order of magnitude faster than they can cool:

Fastest measured brain temperature increases in rodents

Condition (awake rats)	Approx. rate (ΔT/60 s)	Source
Social interaction	≈ 0.18–0.20 °C/min (≈ 0.003 °C/s)	Kiyatkin 2019, Fig. 2 (2‑s bins, 0–60 s); text: “increases within the first 10 s and significant within 20–30 s.” (PMC)
Tail‑pinch (3 min)	≈ 0.15–0.17 °C/min	Kiyatkin 2019, Fig. 2 (onset‑latency panels as above). (PMC)
20‑s tone (auditory)	≈ 0.05–0.06 °C/min	Kiyatkin 2019, Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 (habituation). (PMC)

Typical brain cooling temperatures in rodents:

Situation	Typical peak warming (ΔT)	Time back to baseline	Implied cooling rate	Quote / Source
Eating completed	~1.5 °C	~35 min	≈ 0.043 °C/min	“…returned to baseline after ∼35 min.” PMC
Food‑seeking without eating (frustration)	~1.2 °C	~50 min	≈ 0.024 °C/min	“…return to baselines after ∼50 min.” PMC
Brief arousal; small peak then recovery	~0.6 °C (peak at ~10 min)	20–30 min after peak	≈ 0.03–0.06 °C/min	“…peaked at ∼10 min… returned to the baselines at 20–30 min.” PMC

Rodents brains might also exhibit heat throttling just like a computer. When rodent brain are already heated, Kiyatkin observed:

Although correlation was weaker, locomotor response was also dependent on basal temperature, being stronger at lower levels and weaker at higher levels.

The above may also be true for humans, especially in certain brain regions. But it is hard to conduct these studies because they require physically inserting a temperature probe into the brain. Humans probably do have much larger heat buffering than rodents do—so they have the same problem but can go a little longer before heat throttling kicks in.

Boosting the cooling ability of the brain

Boosting the cooling ability of the brain could allow it to run fast longer before heat throttling kicks in. There are already products that use water cooling to cool the head. Water is run through channels in pads that sit on the scalp. For some reason, cooling the scalp greatly reduces chemotherapy hair loss. So most products are sold for that purpose.

One of the main ways to cool the brain is evaporative cooling from the forehead. Have you noticed how much cognitive work is done in cooler climates with relatively low humidity? Seattle and the Bay Area. Evaporative cooling works an order of magnitude better in cool and dry than in hot and humid climates.

I think that brain cooling solutions have a decent chance to allow us to become superhuman.

I’m a software developer by profession. I have researched this topic for years. I have more to say on this topic. I have many other weird but powerful ideas.

Contact me if you want to work with me. I am interesting in forming a startup based on this idea or other ideas of mine.