

I tried Silicon Valley’s favorite ‘brain-enhancing’ drugs - geoffwoo
http://fusion.net/story/58131/i-tried-silicon-valleys-favorite-brain-enhancing-drugs/

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aaardvark
Garbage article. There are no "brain enhancers", only stimulants, both
commonly used (coffee, tea etc) and pharmaceutical (amphetamines et al). Look
up Bacopa on examine.com, specifically the studies on Memory Enhancement. For
the ones with participants in the target (aka non-old) group of 18-45, it's
about 50-50. After supplementing over several months.

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raven105x
> There are no "brain enhancers"

I wholeheartedly agree with you that the article is indeed one big garbage
advertisement, alas there is a large number of non-stimulatory substances
which reliably enhance cognition in measures that can be readily quantified
and telling people otherwise is spreading ignorance and misinformation.

First of all, virtually all Adaptogens are non-stimulant cognition enhancers,
of which these are the most notable:

Bacopa -
[http://examine.com/supplements/Bacopa+monnieri/](http://examine.com/supplements/Bacopa+monnieri/)
Rhodiola -
[http://examine.com/supplements/Rhodiola+Rosea/](http://examine.com/supplements/Rhodiola+Rosea/)

Second, there are the profound alas very situational cognition enhancers, such
as:

Piracetam & Noopept in stroke victims, former Alcoholics (quite common) and as
you pointed out the elderly. NSI-189 & PRL-8-53 for poverty-stricken adults
who grew up sleep deprived and/or malnutritioned (common).

Then there are substances widely reported as helpful in healthy subjects, alas
with insufficient studies:

Tianeptine, Centro & CDP/GPC Cholines, Sulbutiamine ...hell even Creatine is a
slight cognitive enhancer.

Now - to your point: are any of these life changing? In damaged individuals,
perhaps. Alas like you said in healthy young adults, many of these substances
will produce either mild improvements or no improvements at all save for
extreme neurological outliers.

But to claim that Stimulants are the only cognitive enhancers especially when
you seem to've done some basic research... why?

~~~
aaardvark
>But to claim that Stimulants are the only cognitive enhancers especially when
you seem to've done some basic research... why?

>Now - to your point: are any of these life changing? In damaged individuals,
perhaps. Alas like you said in healthy young adults, many of these substances
will produce either mild improvements or no improvements at all save for
extreme neurological outliers.

I'm only addressing perceptible cognitive enhancement with regards to
otherwise healthy + young individuals (the target demo of the products listed
in the article). I've gone through every study on examine.com for all the
usual suspects (racetams, choline, rhodiola, bacopa etc) and have even tried
them all personally for ~6 months. I feel pretty confident in saying that they
are worthless for people in that demo.

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CyberDildonics
One giant advertisement.

