N&PD Moderators: Skorpio
Results of the nootropic survey
atara
Bluelighter
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/16/nootropics-survey-results-and-analysis/
Interesting epistemology we've got here, choline bitartrate as a secret placebo. I think the biggest surprise, to me, was theanine.
ebola?
Bluelight Crew
I am...less than surprised at how well modafinil rated. I mean, it's not like d-amphetamine was in the list as a point of comparison. Also, I have contentions with their working surrogate for a placebo condition. Because many nootropic users are immersed in various lore, we should expect different compounds to present with unique placebo-effects.
ebola
Interesting. I've been working my way through various nootropics and tend to agree with this survey's results - modafinil has the most profound effects. I found piracetam was good for learning, aniracetam fantastic for potentiating drugs (notably caffeine & alcohol) and now I've just started noopept. So far I'm feeling a headache but i'm only on day 2 and I took a lot today (50mg in total). I generally take high doses of nootropics since I rarely notice side-effects. I'd be taking 3-4 grams of piracetam and about 2-3 grams of aniracetam a day, respectively.
In reality, the best drug for me was adderall which just compelled me to do something. I cleaned my room, wiped down my desk, scrubbed my bathroom floor about 5 times before even realizing I'd scrubbed it so much. I then went to get my haircut but there was a queue, and I couldn't handle sitting down for even 2 minutes. I came home finished completely cleaning and just had to start my uni work. Smashed out 3 hours of solid work before finally doing something non-productive. Man if only that stuff was easy to obtain...
In reality, adderall, modafinil & caffeine are the only drugs I would solidly confirm that the effects I experienced were not placebo.
Hi JWills,
Can you describe in more detail the effect you get from Modafinil?
Also, are you taking nootropics in an attempt to repair some perceived cognitive deficit, or just to enhance your baseline cognitive performance?
The effect from modafinil was purely attentional for me, but I never actually did much work on it. I found that whatever I chose to do, while on modafinil, I would just keep doing it. So it was really important that I'd start in the right direction (which I rarely did, hence why I never actually did much work). Often I'd drop the modafinil and play my xbox because I found I'd play really well and I'm quite a serious gamer. It's akin to being on caffeine, but you're more focussed and don't experience the recreational side of caffeine (such as no euphoria/mood lift). My experiences with modafinil were limited though, since I brought a very small amount. It's certainly worth trying.
I'm taking nootropics as a cognitive enhancer, so the latter to your question. I'm very strong academically and a first class student (which I actually thank piracetam for). During my third year of university I was completing my dissertation (spending 10+ hours in the library) and taking high doses of piracetam daily. I was never that academic at school (slightly above average), nor during my first two years of university, usually only achieving 50-60s at best, and even some 40s. But in the 3 months I was taking piracetam and working obsessively, my academic capabilities just seemed to expand at a rate I feel hard to attribute to purely my own effort (but of course this played a highly influential role). Now on my master's degree in a different area to my undergrad, I'm regularly achieving 70-80s with only a few marks lower (which I blame shitty markers for in all honesty). If you look back to my first posts on this forum, you'll realize my writing style has improved ten-fold. I'd like to think my critical thinking has too. Considering it all seemed to happen during the piracetam/dissertation era, I have attributed a lot to the nootropics and thus I'm compelled to take them everyday.
Also, while I'm academically strong, I don't feel cognitively strong. Like my spatial attention and memory are not good at all. My 10 year old brother will regularly beat me at a spatial attention game and I can never see things right in front of me. I know it's common but it makes me feel like an idiot. I hope nootropics could help me improve in these areas. Although that is secondary.
Also, I guess a general interest in drugs keeps me experimenting with numerous different nootropics and so far my experiences have been nothing but positive. If nothing else, they sure are fantastic potentiators of alcohol and caffeine. A combination of 3-4 grams of aniracetam and a fair amount of alcohol managed to get me as drunk I used to when I was 18 and consuming obnoxious amounts of alcohol. I could barely even remember the evening.
I assume you're interested in trying them yourself?
astudentforever
Greenlighter
the phrasing of “a scale of zero (completely useless, did nothing) to ten (life-changing)” seems to render a big part of the study useless, since life-changing is a vague term and it doesn’t account for negative side effects (meaning it did worse than nothing.)
endotropic
Bluelight Crew
Even though choline supplementation alone probably doesn't have any positive cognitive effects, it might in situations of acetylcholine deficiency. It's typically used in combination with drugs that are thought to deplete acetylcholine no?
It might not be totally fair to say that choline's effects are 100% placebo, so if anything this survey might have overestimated the placebo level. Their methodology is excellent for an internet administered retrospective survey though. I hope someone carries this forward with other classes of research compounds without much clinical data.
Last edited: