Comment · Fri, January 30, 2015 · Ceretropic
Discrepancy of study outcomes and anecdotal evidence - how much of nootropic effect is placebo?
Original post in this thread
Aretus · 20 points
This has bugged me for a while. I have experimented with a lot of different substances in my time - mostly recreative drugs, prescription medications and some - few - nootropics.
What I have found out by reading studies is that the actual scientific evidence for a profound impact of nootropics concerning cognitive enhancement. For the effects of many nootropics there is no valid scientific evidence anyway. But even in the cases where there is a good foundation of studies, the amplitude of the effects is extremely minor. In many cases very promising animal studies are followed up by extremely disappointing results in human testing. I'd like to illustrate what I mean using two nootropics with strong scientific evidence backing them up, piracetam and bacopa monnieri.
Piracetam has shown extremely promising results in animal testing using rats. There are some studies suggesting it has a memory-enhancing effect in healthy people, although the better and more intricately designed the studies are, the less pronounced these effects become, up to a point where many studies suggest that piracetam has no memory-enhancing effects in healthy people at all. On the other hand, its neuroprotecti…
What they were answering
GetOutOfBox · 2 points
PRL-8-147
The research for this one is very sketchy; Hansl's much-hyped study reported ridiculously positive effects (somewhere around 160% improvement in number recall), and yet for whatever reason he never was able to secure funding. I can see no reason that pharmaceutical companies of the time would not have jumped on it, aside from his study methadology/conduction having crippling flaws.
I trialed the NSN PRL myself, administered objective memory tests (digit span, spatial pattern recall, etc) and had absolutely no change in my memory performance. I dosed both orally, and sublingually. I did multiple trials, and never experienced any benefit. I did notice a slight improvement in mood, as well as some faint, almost psychadelic like visual effects (things felt as if they had a barely perceptible warm glow to them, which wore off after about 1-2 hours after dosing).
That's not to say that it does nothing, but I am highly skeptical that it's some kind of wonder drug.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
Yep, it could be a total dud. However, the only way we are going to know for sure, is to get it synthesized, and run some testing. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see what direction he was going with the structural changes.