Nootropics and Cognitive-enhancement Discussion Area

knb

Many people on LW have expressed interest in nootropics and cognitive enhancement. However, since people are presumably interested in the long-term efficacy, side effects and withdrawal symptoms of using various supplements, open-threads (which quickly become hard to navigate and only last a couple weeks anyway) are a sub-optimal place to discuss the topic.

So I thought I would create a permanent area for people who want to discuss the topic long-term.

Here are some "quick links" courtesy of gwern:

And Wikipedia's main page on the topic.

So I thought I would create a permanent area for people who want to discuss the topic long-term.

Here are some "quick links" courtesy of gwern:

And Wikipedia's main page on the topic.

The anecdotes IMO were persuasive and universal enough that when I first tried piracetam and got the headaches, I instantly assumed they were the 'choline headaches' and ordered some (since 2 or 3 eggs wasn't doing the trick). Personal experience is a powerful persuader.

But you wanted references, so here's some: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam#Side_effects

"Headache from large doses of piracetam may be alleviated by coadministration of an acetylcholine biosynthetic precursor, or a drug with cholinergic effects, such as choline bitartrate, choline citrate, choline alfoscerate, lecithin, cyprodenate or centrophenoxine.50 51"

I've gotten a couple serious headaches that wouldn't go away with 2 aspirin since I started taking Piracetam. I attributed one of the headaches to oversleeping, but Piracetam might have been the cause in retrospect.

1Jonathan_Graehl16y

On 50 (full text) - a study of old people in a mental hospitol whose psychiatric illness was considered to be in 'remission' - 2.4g/day and 4.8g/day both improved intelligence, but 4.8g/day slightly degraded "verbal IQ" (which includes working memory) and some "memory quotient" (table 3, pg103). They speculate that other studies showed no significant benefit for N=20 only because the dose was too low or the timeframe too short (2.4g/day showed P<0.5 improvements after more than 8 weeks (not yet significant at 4 weeks), but 4.8g/day gave significant improvements after 4 weeks and 8 weeks, with a decline at 12 weeks, though not in all measures erasing all the benefit compared to the placebo group). The analysis seems competently done; the 3 groups (N=20 each) were purely randomly chosen, not balanced for other traits, so for instance the 2.4g/day group was dumber than the other groups before intervention; they corrected for this in analysis. In table 2 (pg 102), higher scores are worse for SCAG and BPRS, and the opposite (higher=good) for nurse CGI (Clinical Global Impression - some subjective measure of "is the patient doing better") and CGRS. Placebo group had no CGI improvement; both 2.4 and 4.8 had a huge improvement. As for negative effects, 4.8g/day had slightly more diziness (P>.1 however), and 2.4g/day had significantly worse cooperation and sleep. It seems like everyone had worse sleep, so I don't know what to make of that, but they claim it's significant after ANOCovariance. They also claim an anecdotal dose-dependent decrease in parkinsonian-like facial tremor symptoms (i.e. 4.8g/day was more effective), which seems contrary to 51's claim of 'tremor' as a common piracatem side effect. Anyway, piracatem definitely helps old and/or in-'remission' schizo/affective people think better (not sure if it's and or or). Since the net benefit at week 12 of 2.4g/day was much more than 4.8g/day, I really want to know if there's some longer term (e.g. 50 weeks) whe

0Jonathan_Graehl16y

On 51: 5g/day to severe concussion victims weak evidence for some side effects: anxiety, insomnia, nervousness, tremor (I haven't experienced any of those; these seem hard to separate from the concussion symptoms) no change in blood pressure or heart rate gradual and significantly better than placebo improvement over 8 weeks in headache/vertigo symptoms post-concussion. insignificantly more improvement than placebo in memory, tremor, and fainting-from-standing ('orthostatic symptoms'). placebo patients reported 2.1 side effects on avg; 5g piracetam reported 2.3 on avg. no mention of headaches caused by piracetam or choline