Nootropics and other Cognitive Enhancers

Thought I would share what I learned about them in neuropsychopharmacology today as I’ve seen people discussing them on here before.

One of the most commonly known nootropics, piracetam, is primarily used in Europe for treatment of those with dementia. In individuals with dementia it has shown large and promising improvements in cognitive ability. However in almost no other group of people have they shown anything more than a slight improvement in cognitive ability. I even asked my professor if they had been tested on whether they could help schizophrenic cognitive ability and he said studies found minimal improvement, not large enough to be significant.

Other cognitive enhancers such as omega-3 fatty acids and certain vitamins have had numerous studies performed on them but none have shown any positive improvement in cognitive ability whatsoever.

That’s my report!

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I’d be careful with that. DMAE, for example, can imbalance acetylcholine. It’s a lot more complex than taking something; there’s a lot of neurotransmitters at work

I took Ginko Biloba for a while, and I thought I was smarter, but I guess it was the placebo effect. I wonder what they used for objective measurement in these trials.