Comment · Fri, January 17, 2014 · Ceretropic
Captagon: The amphetamine fuelling Syria's civil war (x-post from r/cyberpunk)
What they were answering
NeonMessiah · 3 points
What definition do you use that a priori rules out amphetamines as a nootropic?
The only quality you listed is "addictive[ness]," which can't be disqualificatory in itself.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
Are you seriously trying to position amphetamine as a nootropic? For one, the VMAT-2 inhibition leads to a lot of oxidative damage. Yes, even under normal dosages.
Second, there is large risk of excitotoxicity. This is due to increased extracellular glutamate levels, which leads to large amount of calcium transmission into the neuron. This causes not only rapid tolerance buildup, but also damage to axon terminals, and even complete neuronal death. Since many people are deficient in magnesium as it is, their bodies cannot handle the excess glutamate.
Then we get to amphetamine metabolites, which are also neurotoxic. P-hydroxyamphetamine and p-hydroxy-norephedrine both lead to decreases in dopamine and serotonin in a dose-dependent manner. This not only occurs in the striatum, but in the hippocampus as well; which leads to memory issues.
This is before even getting into the structural changes to the reward pathway caused by long-term use of dopaminergic stimulants. Pair that with the studies that show amphetamine does not improve people's cognition, but merely makes them think they performed better on tests, and there is no way anyone can make a scientifically sound argument that amphetamine is a nootropic. It causes oxidative and excitotoxic damage, it leads to rapid tolerance buildup, it has a very high potential for addiction, and it does not lead to measurable increases in cognitive ability. It is not a nootropic by any definition of the word.