PART 1. Nootropic Drugs ['Drugs that Make You Smart'] Centrophenoxine (Trade name: Lucidrile) This is an intelligence booster and an effective anti-aging therapy, shown to cause improvements in various aspects of memory function and a 30% increase in life span of laboratory animals. Human dosage is rated at 1000-3000mg per day, Centrophenoxine takes effect VERY quickly and results are noticable in alertness and slight stimulation. Not available in USA, available in mexico. Choline/Lecithin Choline can be found in several forms including cholrine bitatrate,chorine cholride or phosphatidyl choline. All thes forms will produce memory boosting effects. Choline compounds have the ability to break the blood-brain barrier. 3 Grams per day in three divided doses. These drugs are considered Nutritional supplements and can be purchased at health food stores. Phosphantidyl Choline has some intresting effects unlike standard Lecithin though. It functions as a source of structural material for every cell in the human body; particularly those of the brain and nerves. It also aids in the metabolism of fats, regulates blood cholesterol, and nourishes the fat-like sheathes of nerve fibers. Piracetam Piracetam improves memory and learning functions in normal persons. Its used in the treatment of alcholics, vertigo, stroke. It seems to promote the flow of information between both hemispheres of the brain, and its said to be so safe that one FDA employee has been quoted as saying that it can't have any pharmacological effects because of its very low toxicity even in extremely high doses. The effect of Piracetam can be enhanced if taken with DMAE or choline. There's a synergetic effect when taken with choline that causes a greater improvement than the sum of each when taken alone. Adverse effects are rare. Piracetam is supplied in 400mg / 800mg tablets the usual dose is 2400 - 4800mg / day, in 3 divided doses. Some literature says that you should take an high attack dosage for the first two days. Not sold in USA. Can be purchased OTC in mexico. Nootropics are generally considered to be any substance which (1) improves information acquisition AND (2) protects against learning- and memory- impairing agents (3) without having either (a) sedative or stimulant effects on one's general behavior, or (b) dangerous toxicity. As one might guess, we don't know of too many of these yet. Caffeine's out, for example; too toxic. Since we don't know the mechanisms of most of these (choline probably being an exception), it's not really clear how to classify cognitive enhancers. However, there's a fairly large class structurally related enhancers which are probably the paradigm nootropics: the 2-pyrrolidinones. Of these, piracetam is the most studied (it was discovered first, around '72), so I'll free associate about its various quirks for a bit. Even though piracetam et al are cyclic derivatives of GABA, they don't seem to be involved with GABA's regulation of neurotransmission. One current hypothesis is that piracetam (can I just call it "P," people?) activates the cholinergic system (acetylcholine and its system are believed to be important in memory, natch). However, cholinergic drugs typically help episodic memory in Alzheimer's patients and P doesn't. Oddly enough, P has no effect on adrenalectomized rats (even when given 3000 mg/kg po). P decreases 5-HT (serotonin) and increases noradrenaline at low doses (20 mg/kg ip) in rats; yet higher (100 mg..) doses have the opposite effect. Basically, what I'm trying to say is: everyone's clueless. (Side note: Things like this make me recall that we've only isolated a tiny fraction of the various neurotransmitters and systems in the brain. It may be that trying to functionally decompose the nervous system into separate subsystems is entirely wrongheaded. Perhaps the brain is one big dynamical system.) Ahem. Anyway, since we don't know how nootropics work, "we" try to find them by artificially-inducing amnesia in rodents and seeing if various substances reverse this "amnesia." One of the most commonly used amnesiacs is scopolamine; others are hemicholinium-3 and cycloheximide. P reverses the effects of these amnesiacs, but doesn't help against ketamine-induced amnesia. As I recall, scopolamine is believed to block the transfer of info into long-term memory only, while ketamine (which blocks the ionic channels of the nicotinic receptor) actually prevents the formation of short- term memory. Make of it what you will. Lest you think that these "amnesias" are highly artificial (they are), it's good to remember that similar things are done to study depression (and "we"'re pretty successful at finding new anti-depressants). Besides, it's the way of science to start out with very rough models and continually tweak and fine-tune them. Once "we"ve found a substance with this sort of screen, "we" start to look at its effects in other cases. I recall reading that Piracetam improves learning (using simple T-shaped mazes with brightness as the thing the lil guys have to pay attention to) in both normal rats and also significantly helps rats whose parents have left them or who just didn't get enough to eat growing up. P also helps alleviate the impairment of learning caused by too much booze in rats as well. Oh yes, it has nice anti-ulcer activity (based on aspirin- or immobilization stress- induced ulcer studies in rats). This type of research is hard on rats. As for people, wellll, they're a lot more expensive than rats. I know there's been some success in treating vertigo-patients, elderly people with rheumatism, and people with involutional depression (a type which frequently precedes dementia). P does seem to increase cerebral-blood flow, and has been used to treat people with signs of brain circulation failure (I think at 1.5 grams/day, but am not sure). I haven't seen anything in the literature about toxicity, although I know that it was given in children at 170 mg/kg with no subjectively-felt problems (I don't recall their ages, sorry). There's been evidence (in mice) that P may increase the effects of some antidepressants. Be wary. Some of the 2-pyrrolidinones seem to protect cell proteins against free-radicals, but P isn't one of them. Sitaram, Weingartner, Caine, Gillin ,"Choline: Selective Enhancement of Serial Learning and Encoding of Low Imagery Words in Man," Life Sci. 22: 1555-1560, 1978 Bartus et al, "Age-related changes in passive avoidance retension: modulation with dietary choline," Science (Washington D.C.) 209 (4453): 301-3, 1980 Drachman and Leavitt, "Human Memory and the Cholinergic System," Arch. 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