Nootropics

From BLWiki

Nootropics are drugs taken with the goal of enhancement of what are traditionally thought of as intelligence, cognition, analytical thinking power, memory and/or general everyday clarity of thought. This is in contrast to taking a drug for an upper, downer, or psychedelic effect, though some Nootropics provide one of the aforementioned effects.

The basics

What is the purpose of this page?

The acquisition and use of Nootropics is relatively straightforward. And it is easy enough to find many conflicting experience reports or unsupported claims about a drug's effects on the web. So there is no purpose in reproducing that here - aimless pseudo-chemistry lectures based on your own vision of the proper "stack" will be deleted.

Here is what this page IS for: A collaborative writing/publishing environment can add to the debate and discourse by serving is as a clearinghouse for sorting, organizing, and presenting in a balanced and skeptical manner medical research on popular Nootropics (both for, against, and how they work, etc), and relevant research and educational materials on the chemistry of cognition and brain functioning. This way, users can decide for themselves whether there is any substantial evidence to support different claims about what a particular drug will usually do.

Ed.'s note: if you want to help edit this page but aren't sure how, a good place to start would be reading through this entire page, and then checking out the talk page for this page

What are Nootropics?

Erowid's Definition

"Nootropics or Smarts Drugs are chemicals which are claimed to have mild to moderate positive mental or physical effects such as improvements to memory, cognition, and clarity of thought or "anti-aging" effects. "

As usual, a good place to start researching Nootropics is Wikipedia. And we haven't yet concisely summarized about them yet here, so just go there for now... Nootropics on Wikipedia - Read the full page

What drugs belong on this page?

The "Nootropics" category is not an objective category defined by clear consensus. There are many, many drugs which could be placed under it, and for many of those drugs there is no logical of defining whether they do or do not fit under this category without constructing an arbitrary definition of Nootropics unreflected in the term's wide common usage.

Nevertheless, Nootropics is a classification which can be useful for grouping and comparing a variety of drugs, most of which exist in a close constellation of usages and claimed effects, though varying greatly in chemical family or mechanism of action.

This page then includes information on drugs which are popularly identified as Nootropics or share the criteria by which people call other drugs Nootropics (they have been taken many times solely for improvements in mental function). If people describe it as a Nootropic, or many people take it for Nootropic purposes, and/or it shares the characteristics of either of the former, put it here.

Problems

Nootropics = harmless?

Nootropics are often promoted as being "harmless", but it would be a mistake to hold that as criteria for being on this page, or to use that term to describe the drugs below, or to even say that the drugs most popularly called Nootropics are harmless.

Taking a Nootropic is worlds away from being hooked on smack, but Nootropics present a different kind of danger. Calling them "harmless" gives a false sense of assurance and security when like any drug, legal or not, they have side effects and combinations and personal interactions to which you should pay attention.

Things to consider with Nootropics: Over time, regular use of even the physically safest Nootropic can significantly change your brain chemistry in many ways, none of which are yet fully understood, and it is up to you to decide where that is a desired effect, where that is a harmless side effect, and where that is an unwanted side effect. Remember that brain chemistry, not just physiology, is an important part of your health.

While it is true that many Nootropics have a generally safe psychoactive effect, there are also many Nootropics which can be fatally dangerous if taken without understanding their effects. This is especially true for Nootropics which have strong physiological effects. Not paying attention to the changes these drugs cause in your body can be very dangerous, both in the short term and long term. Some prominent examples are Seligiline, Modafinil, and Vinpocetine.

Nootropics = Legal?

Almost all Nootropics are unregulated, with some exceptions (Modafinil the most common one, GHB is sometimes considered a Nootropic).

Research Discourse

Rigor is our friend

Open-minded experimentation and evidence-based skepticism go hand-in-hand in good scientific inquiry. Too often enthusiasts looking to drive research and use will abandon the latter and sabotage their ability to make any effective arguments about a drug's use. Skepticism is important here because this page is more about finding out what is right than believing we are right in our well-intending hunches.

While we encourage users to use what works for them, it is unnecessary to use this space to replicate a feel-good safe-space environment for the wielding of disparate, fuzzily supported views about this drug, that drug, the "traditional medical establishment," the "alternative medicine industry," etc. That has already been done on the internet. If you simply desire casual discussion and experience reports about Nootropics, we can link you to no end of threads on that. The link to these threads is provided with some context in the Research discourse section.

For the purposes of this page, these threads can sometimes be useful in pointing out interesting research, hypothetical mechanisms of action, or potential adverse interactions with other drugs.

For the purpose of experience reports, Nootropics have more in common with Complementary Alternative Medicine than they do with the other drugs referenced here: their desired "effects" are things the human body might be capable of performing/simulating entirely on its own. Therefore the events that follow the taking of a Nootropic, (a perceived faster cognition, a sense of being "on top of one's work") cannot effectively on an individual basis be distinguished into events caused by a drug, or events caused by the Placebo effect. On top of all the other problems present in self-run self-experimenting casual medical trials, the indifferentiable nature of whether a Nootropic has succesfully fulfilled its purported use (vs. say, LSD, where you immediately know it's having an effect), makes Nootropic experience reports, for all effects and purposes, useless in discerning anything (misleading as the promise of a Nootropic experience report may be).

So, for the purposes of ascertaining what is relevant to you in regards to taking a Nootropic... that is learning:

What are the usual cognitive effects of a Nootropic? How strong are these effects?
whether Nootropics usually (or even 1 time out of 1000) achieve a purported use (and to what degree)
and the most common side effects of a Nootropic,

an experience report, that is, the content of many of the posts in the below threads, can never help you - no matter how much they promise to able to describe the above.

Please click here for links to many BL threads, and other boards which cater often to threads on Nootropics

General Resources

Researching Nootropics

List of free chemistry databases

Buying Nootropics

Many drugs here are likely sold at your local drugstore, though under many names. Did you know, for example, that Phenytoin has more than 100 brand names it is sold under? They're not all listed here, so if you're interested in a drug, you can find its entry in a chemistry database which lists its brand names.

Buying on the internet is a good idea. If a company is manufacturing the drug for use by the general public, it will generally be cheaper than if a laboratory is synthesizing it for drug trials. However, sometimes when the for-public-sale version is very expensive, some laboratories will sell it for cheap. You can find lab suppliers through databases like PubChem. In addition, laboratory suppliers can be sure to sell the chemical at a high purity (though general public suppliers almost always do the same).

Because prices change from month to month, and there are so many Nootropics to keep track of, it is useless to record prices here as a user would be better off just entering the Nootropic of interest into a price comparison or chemical supplier search engine.

By chemical

Racetams

Aniracetam

Nootropics

Contents

The basics

What is the purpose of this page?

What are Nootropics?

What drugs belong on this page?

Problems

Nootropics = harmless?

Nootropics = Legal?

Research Discourse

Rigor is our friend

General Resources

Researching Nootropics

Buying Nootropics

By chemical

Racetams

Cholinergic

Glutamatergic

GABAergic

Vasodilator

Supplements of normally occuring chemicals

Other, or unknown mechanism

haven't been categorized yet...

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