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Does PRL-8-53 really work?

The actual scientific evidence for most nootropics is pretty tenuous, with maybe piracetam being the exception. iirc there was a paper claiming that people taking PRL-8-53 had a much improved digit span (even claiming that one patient had a ridiculous increase to a 40+ digit span). The problem is anecdotal evidence is very poor in these cases since humans are notoriously bad at assessing their own cognitive function. This makes experiences with nootropics even more susceptible to the placebo effect. PRL-8-53 has been around for awhile and has generally mediocre reviews. There's some evidence it can help with memory but don't expect anything life changing.

EDIT: For clarity when I talk about placebo I'm referring to the experience reports that you may read online. I didn't mean to suggest scientific studies would rely on self-reporting when it comes to cognitive abilities.
 
I can't comment on studies and definitive proof of such claims. Just my own subjective experience. I find it increased memory, focus, drive, and enjoyment of music on par with a light dose of psychedelics. To a degree, all the positive aspects of stimulants without the bothersome periphreal stimulation but not to the same degree. The most noticeable effect was the increased enjoyment of music which was quite phenomenal. I combined it with aniracetam and coluracetam to great effect.

Humans are shitty computers and my subjective experience could be jaded by placebo effect because I expect my memory to be increased. Studies out suggest that, yes, it should increase certain forms of memory/recall but we have to wait for more studies to confirm these findings. As of right now I did find it worth the money and have found it to definitely be nootropic with no bad side effects.
 
Intriguingly simplistic structure. Is it know how the stuff acts, yet?

Might have to give that one a go, since it could be made, with relatively effort by the looks of it. And more importantly, not too much expense.
 
What scarce info can be gleaned from that one single study suggests that people who benefit mostly would be people with deteriorated cognition - from age or other causes... maybe that is lame to say because even more established nootropics are generally considered to work quite a bit more pronounced in those with brain injuries etc... but if the high-performers in the study didn't show significant improvement, and no other evidence to go on, that really limits the 'promise'.

It looks a bit like sunifiram to me (the structure). Mostly the benzylamine I guess. Although the series of PRL-8-53 is of aminoethyl meta benzoates... Are these ultimately acetylcholine derivatives? Quite some NMDA antagonists are also vaguely NMDA derived but with an aromatic group replacing the carboxyl (ester in case of Ac choline)
 
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Unfortunately, due to uncontrolled, totally unsupervised barbiturate withdrawal, cold turkey, enforced when got thrown into prison (wrongly so at that)
coupled with near starvation, to the point of when past more than a month of delirium tremens, seizures and worse besides, didn't even know food was there, looked like an auschwitz victim after I became able to see my own body again. The excitotoxicity from combined GABA antagonism (or is withdrawal closer to inverse agonism?) and the AMPAr blocking effects of barbiturate drugs, it totally trashed me, and I am, many many years later still struggling with day to day life.

In truth it surprises me greatly that given I find it very difficult to cook FOOD, that I remain competent in the lab, whilst I am now totally mathmatically blind, I was always dyscalculic, very, very severely so, now I find it impossible to do more than count a few coins in change, and THAT is difficult as hell, or round figures with notes. I must now use chemistry oriented calculators for every single thing I do in the lab. And I forget often to put the tops back on reagent bottles. I have to be constantly hypervigilant in there.

But, whilst its really hard to cook a meal, I yet somehow remain competent in the lab.

So yes, there is longterm and quite severe neurological injury, and at that one that has had quite a lot of selectivity towards targeting short term and working memory, plus encoding those into longterm memories. Do you guys have any idea why this might be? (the remaining active in the lab? sometimes I've thought I wouldn't be able to cope anymore, but my results are still good. And I am, it must be said, most unusually and extremely dedicated to what I do. Because it IS, what i DO. If that makes sense. Have been at the scientific literature since I was a toddler, I jest not, I even taught myself to read using textbooks in mycology and botany at age 2-3. Must have been earlier than age three, since I had a conversation with my remaining living grandfather the other day not long after my mother died and he reminded me that I was already a quite competent mycologist at 3yo.

Do you think the combination of a deep, deep deep love for the subjects scientific, particularly chemistry, mycology and botany, as well as study of psychotropic agents, has more to do with things? or perhaps being on the autistic spectrum (classic/Kanner's phenotype.....*rock..rock...flapflapflap...*lines up his glassware repeatedly and has his reagents stacked in super-neat rows, labels turned JUST SO, and loves it that way*)

Or perhaps duration of the seeking of knowledge. Else maybe having a lot more 'juice' to work with than a significant proportion of folk (note, please PLEASE do not take me for boasting, or even trying to. I am not. But this question cannot be asked without my having to admit to being very intelligent, and the intellect I do have being extremely focused upon the subjects I so dearly adore. Because for me, science is, and has ALWAYS been, since the very first moment I could first pick up a book and decipher what the letters on the pages said, nothing short of an addiction as deeply entrenched, and indeed more so since I not only could never shake that off, but would never, ever EVER want to live any other way. The thought alone, of being unable to live amongst my beakers, buchners, sep funnel, soxhlet, condensers, flasks and all manner of reagents from the benign to the MOPP suit and O2 supply jobs, it is as a living breathing hell to me.)

Or is there a neurological, physiological explanation for this that could explain why and how even damaged as I have become, I still manage to pull my weight?
 
All I can really say about that is that yeah I can quite empathize with the discrepancy between certain dysfunction in every day life and memory/attention problems on one hand, but on the other hand analytical thinking not being affected and indeed being a thinking modus that comes natural with being on the spectrum... Yeah I taught myself to read as well..
Something like attention being fucked apparently doesn't have that much to do with the way you think and what various types of intelligence are based on... it seems some of it like being in the lab is just more 'procedural' and can be managed without really having to rely on what enables you to function in every day life.

Isn't imprinting short term memory into long term mediated by LTP?

Some nootropics may be quite suitable for you and me, well not a bad idea to take them again (obviously we both have past experience)... as long as it's not too anxiogenic I guess. Also there is various drug potentiation possible....
Isn't it also quite likely the sedatives have been fucking with your memory a great deal over time as well, despite you saying that clomethiazole is perfectly fine... some of these nootropic drugs and effects have been studied in particular with regard to drug-induced mental impairment such as from diazepam, I think. At least that is what I seem to remember from some articles.
 
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