What are Nootropics and How Can They Help Your Brain?

If you’ve never heard of nootropics, you’re missing out!

These “smart drugs” have the potential to improve your brain function, enhance cognition, boost energy levels, and so much more.

Make no mistake: they’re no “magic pill” that will turn you into a brainiac overnight. However, these compounds and chemicals interact with your brain in a way that augments cognitive function in fascinating ways.

In this post, we’ll take a look at what nootropics are, what types of nootropics exist, and how they affect your brain. We’ll also examine the pros and cons of these “smart drugs” so you can understand their capabilities as well as their limitations and potential dangers.

By the end, you’ll have a much better understanding of what nootropics have the potential to do for your brain.

Nootropics 101: A Closer Look

Let’s start off with the basic question: “What are nootropics?”

Nootropics are defined ^[1] as “a diverse group of medicinal substances whose action improves human thinking, learning, and memory, especially in cases where these functions are impaired.”

This is why they get their name “smart drugs”—because they can quite literally improve the various brain functions we’ve come to associate with intelligence: thinking, learning, and memory.

There are four basic types of nootropics ^[2]:

1. Classical nootropic compounds
2. Substances increasing brain metabolism
3. Cholinergics
4. Plants/plant extracts with nootropic effects

Type #1: Classical Nootropic Compounds

Deanol, or DMAE. This is a precursor to choline, the nutrient the brain needs to produce acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that plays a significant role in memory and learning. Raising DMAE can boost mood, alertness, sleep quality, lucid dreams, and attention.

Meclofenoxate. This is made up of two parts: 1) a synthetic version of the auxins found in plants, which play a role in carbohydrate exchange (which fuels the brain), and 2) deanol. It’s twice as effective as DMEA at increasing acetylcholine, and it’s often used in cases where patients are suffering from significant neuronal damage, memory decline, oxidative stress, and inflammation, as well as vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Nicergoline. This is an ergot alkaloid that’s used to treat neurodegeneration or vascular dementia. It can protect neurons from beta-amyloid toxicity, increase blood circulation and oxygenation in the brain, support the metabolic activity in your brain, and enhance cognitive function overall.

Piracetam. This is derived from acetamide and GABA, and is capable of enhancing acetylcholine function in your brain. It can also increase oxygen consumption, protects and treats nerve cell damage, and enables the brain to absorb more glucose (energy). It’s also capable of increasing brain cell plasticity and brain perfusion, improving both learning and memory.

Pyritinol. This is a variation on Vitamin B6 (pyridoxin) and can have a direct positive effect on your central nervous system. It’s highly effective at crossing the brain-blood barrier (unlike other medications or compounds) and is absorbed directly into your brain, where it can combat age-related brain deficits, eliminate free radicals, improve circulation, maintain concentration, and improve both memory and learning.

Type #2: Substances Increasing Brain Metabolism

Vinpocetine. Derived from the lesser periwinkle plant, this nootropic can aid in the dilation of your brain arteries, improve blood flow in your brain, increase oxygen and glucose consumption, increase the efficiency of your glucose metabolism, and protect your brain cells against deterioration.

Naftidrofuryl. This is a potent vasodilator that can prevent the blood vessels in your brain from contracting, thereby maintaining efficient circulation. It’s also crucial for glucose and oxygen uptake, fight atherosclerosis, and increase energy metabolism in the individual neuron cells. It’s often used to treat Alzheimer’s, senile dementia, and cardiovascular conditions.

Dihydroergotoxine. This is an ergot alkaloid (like Nicergoline) that can stimulate glucose uptake in the brain, increase brain metabolism, improve communication between the brain synapses, maintain production of neurotransmitters crucial for efficient cognitive function, and slow the neuron aging process. It’s also highly effective at protecting against hypoxia and can be used to treat Alzheimer’s, post-traumatic dementia, and vascular dementia.

Type #3: Cholinergics

Acetylcholine precursors or cofactors. This includes choline, lecithin, L-carnitine, acetyl, and pyrrolidine, all of which are used by the body to make acetylcholine.

Phosphatidylcholine. This is a phospholipid, a compound that is crucial for the structure of cell membranes. It releases the choline needed to produce acetylcholine, leading to improved memory, accelerated learning, and decreased aging of the brain cells.

Type #4: Plant Extracts and Substances With Nootropic Effects

There are a number of plants that contain extracts and substances capable of delivering nootropic effects. The most common include:

• Panax ginseng, which can stimulate nitric oxide production, boost circulation, fight off free radicals, increase antioxidant activity, and improve memory. It has been used as a natural brain-boosting remedy for millennia by Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners.
• Gingko biloba, which has potent antioxidant activity, scavenges free radicals, dilates the blood vessels in the brain, reduces blood viscosity, reduces inflammation, and can protect brain cells against deterioration. 
• Asiatic Pennywort, which can increase the cells’ natural antioxidant defenses, prevent the buildup and even reduce deposits of amyloid plaques in the brain, provide anxiolytic effects, and increase production of acetylcholine, particularly in the hippocampus (a part of the brain crucial for memory and learning). 
• Ashwagandha, which can increase the content of white and red blood cells in the bloodstream, as well as platelets and hemoglobin. Increasing these cells can make the body more effective at transporting nutrients and oxygen to the brain, enhancing cognitive function. Ashwagandha can also reduce lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress, and it has often been used to treat Alzheimer’s.
• Water Hyssop, which can increase nitric oxide production, improve circulation in the brain, fight off free radicals, protect against oxidative stress, increase critical proteins in the hippocampus, and enhance both memory and cognition.
• Guarana, which can have panicolytic and anxiolytic effects (reducing anxiety), improve cognition, reverse memory loss or amnesia (partially), and aid in the formation of new memories.
• Eleuthero, which can increase anti-radical and antioxidant activity in the brain, inhibit lipid peroxidation, improve memory, and strengthen the brain cells against deterioration.
• Rhodiola, which can protect brain cells, modulate genetic expression, stave off cellular apoptosis (death), restore the membranes of your mitochondria, and prevent oxygen radicals from damaging your cells. 
• Schisandra, which can combat exhaustion and fatigue, prevent damage to your brain cells and cytotoxicity, regulate nitric oxide production, protect against free radicals, and prevent neuronal loss. 
• Maca, which can improve latent learning, enhance cognition, have an anti-depressant effect, increase motor coordination, and ensure the brain cells get enough proteins to maintain effective autophagy (“taking out the trash” of cellular junk, critical for maintaining healthy cellular function).

The Cons of Nootropics

As you’ve seen above, there are a lot of “pros”, great benefits of taking these “smart drugs” to boost cognitive function and protect your brain against disease, damage, and deterioration.

However, as with any other medication or supplement, it’s important to know what risks might be involved in their use.

There are some side effects that may stem from taking prescription nootropics ^[4], including:

• Insomnia
• Sleep disturbances
• High blood pressure
• Accelerated heart rate
• Vision troubles
• Addiction to the nootropics
• Higher risk of impulsive behavior

Over-the-counter nootropics also come with their own downsides. For example, caffeine (which is classified by some as a nootropic) can over-stimulate the body and cause sleep problems, excessive irritability, digestive upset, and other problems (depending on their dosage).

The good news is that both OTC and prescription nootropics have been deemed “mostly safe” by experts.

As long as you’re working with a physician to take the right amount of dosage and monitoring any effects it may have on your body, you should have little to worry about with nootropics.

In Conclusion:

Pretty amazing what these substances can do, isn’t it?

As you saw from the long list above, these “smart drugs”—be they natural or synthetic—can do all sorts of marvelous things for your brain, from protecting against deterioration and oxidative damage to enhancing memory and learning, from increasing blood flow and metabolism to strengthening your brain cells’ natural defenses.

If you want to maintain healthy brain function as you age, it may be worth researching these substances and talking with your healthcare provider about which is right for you.