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I don’t understand the author’s reading of the literature they cite. They refer to “isolated studies” and then link to a systematic review of 25 studies. They a

I don’t understand the author’s reading of the literature they cite. They refer to “isolated studies” and then link to a systematic review of 25 studies. They also linked to the same review twice for both memory and attention, which I assume is a mistake, because the review only supports the claim about memory. But none of these studies are about “brain-boosting”. They’re about preventing or reversing cognitive decline, which is perhaps related, but ultimately different. No fault to the author of this post for being unable to find evidence focused on healthy adults; anyone who has looked into the evidence around nootropics can tell you that pretty much nobody wants to study that. But it’s important to be clear about what the evidence actually says, and what it doesn’t speak to.

mililitre 4y ago
Thanks for the feedback: will update the second link to point to the correct source, and I think "isolated findings" would be a more accurate word here. I agree that many of the studies are about cognitive decline, but there's also research on improving cognitive function, which would probably be closer to "brain boosting" category you mention. For example, from the first source I listed, "Six trials (including 1757 participants) assessed executive function, 5 trials (including 1426 participants) assessed effects of LCn3 on processing speed, and 11 (including 5698 participants) assessed memory. Meta-analysis suggested little or no effect for all of these measures (as well as the subcategories of memory, all moderate- or low-quality evidence; see Supplementary Material for further information)."
- stevespang 4y ago
  [dead]
- bearcream67 4y ago
  "Current evidence supports the finding that omega-3 PUFAs with EPA ≥ 60% at a dosage of ≤1 g/d would have beneficial effects on depression." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0515-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0515-5 Is this considered brain boosting?
  - GTP 4y ago
    I don't think so, I would consider "brain boosting" something that makes the brain of an healthy person perform better at certain tasks, not something that improves it for people with a disease.
permo-w 4y ago
why is it that no one wants to study the effects of nootropics?
- Mtinie 4y ago
  I have two hypotheses that came to mind when I read your question: 1. It’s a hard problem to quantify effects on cognitive functioning provided by nootropic supplements. We still have so much to learn about brain function; 2. Nootropics offer patent holders opportunities to make obscene amounts of money. As long as those supplements are (generally) safe to consume. That level of review requires R&D spending, but too much investigation may inadvertently reveal that these money-making “miracle” products are far less effective than the manufacturers claim.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    1. is certainly true. to my mind, an accurate quantitative measure of brain function doesn't exist: you run into the fairly intractable philosophical problem of "what is brain function?" while that is true, not being 100% philosophically sound has never stopped psychology studies before - far from it 2. is also perfectly true, with the caveat that it only applies to beneficiaries of the patents. so your hypotheses account for beneficiaries of the patents, and scientists who aren't willing to broach the subject of measuring brain function, but what about the complement of those subsets? what about non-beneficiaries who are willing to quantify brain function? are they simply a small enough subset that it justifies the observation? or is there another hypothesis to be found? or perhaps the observation is flawed in itself
    - Mtinie 4y ago
      > […]or is there another hypothesis to be found? There most certainly are more hypotheses to discuss. I picked the two which came immediately to mind and passed my personal “plausible enough” check. Thank you for giving me more to consider!
  - theptip 4y ago
    I don't think 1. is correct. There is a large body of research looking into different dimensions of brain function, and how different conditions impair those functions. For example, look at the N-back test for working memory. This is popular in the nootropics community, and is widely used in clinical pharmacology research. There are plenty of other tests. Scientists do experiments like "measure how impaired you are on alcohol vs. antihistamines" to compare impairment profiles from different modes of drug action. You can measure impairment from sleep deprivation, alcohol, etc., so of course you can measure improvement in attention, reaction speed, working memory, spatial reasoning, and so on. The difficulty with quantifying effects is not that we need to learn about brain function to know how to measure them, it's that nootropics have quite small effect sizes, if any. I think it's entirely about 2 -- large studies are expensive, and unless your effect size is enormous you need a large study to detect it.
abeppu 4y ago
> anyone who has looked into the evidence around nootropics can tell you that pretty much nobody wants to study that There's a class of areas where lots of non-experts are interested, but doing studies large enough to detect modest effect sizes with high confidence is too expensive. Nutrition can do either large survey studies, or small controlled experiments. Exercise researchers often have to work with a small number of untrained participants. I would love a citizen science platform for large studies of low-risk interventions operated like a multi-armed bandit setup. "Oh, you're interested improving working memory? Follow regimen X for 90 days and do this working memory test every week." I feel like the hardest parts are getting participants to adhere to their assigned intervention, and preventing participants with a pre-existing agenda from joining.
- karpierz 4y ago
  > I feel like the hardest parts are getting participants to adhere to their assigned intervention, and preventing participants with a pre-existing agenda from joining. This combined with perverse incentives are why it's not possible. Non-experts with the resources to solve these problems are generally trying to sell you something, and aren't particularly interested in the truth.
  - abeppu 4y ago
    Perhaps so. Saying it's "not possible" seems like an overly strong conclusion. For specific interventions, I think it might be possible to have open, blinded participation. E.g. for supplements which may affect memory: - Participants sign up to buy a supplement which they know will be one of k generally safe supplements or a placebo - The specific supplement or placebo they receive it thompson sampled (or similar) from our bandit given data so far, and sent to them unlabeled - They're only able to receive their next bottle if they complete weekly tests or measurements The value prop is that you're probably buying a pretty good intervention, even if you don't know which one it is (and perhaps you're getting a discount subsidized by the minority of people who are paying for a placebo at any given time). For a number of questions related to exercise, people may fall into camps about their prior beliefs, and may self-sabotage if they're in treatment group that goes against their preferences but there isn't a clear thing to sell. E.g. which of a family of training schedules helps people reduce their 10k running time the most?

mililitre 4y ago

Thanks for the feedback: will update the second link to point to the correct source, and I think "isolated findings" would be a more accurate word here. I agree that many of the studies are about cognitive decline, but there's also research on improving cognitive function, which would probably be closer to "brain boosting" category you mention. For example, from the first source I listed, "Six trials (including 1757 participants) assessed executive function, 5 trials (including 1426 participants) assessed effects of LCn3 on processing speed, and 11 (including 5698 participants) assessed memory. Meta-analysis suggested little or no effect for all of these measures (as well as the subcategories of memory, all moderate- or low-quality evidence; see Supplementary Material for further information)."

stevespang 4y ago
[dead]
bearcream67 4y ago
"Current evidence supports the finding that omega-3 PUFAs with EPA ≥ 60% at a dosage of ≤1 g/d would have beneficial effects on depression." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0515-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0515-5 Is this considered brain boosting?
- GTP 4y ago
  I don't think so, I would consider "brain boosting" something that makes the brain of an healthy person perform better at certain tasks, not something that improves it for people with a disease.

permo-w 4y ago

why is it that no one wants to study the effects of nootropics?

Mtinie 4y ago
I have two hypotheses that came to mind when I read your question: 1. It’s a hard problem to quantify effects on cognitive functioning provided by nootropic supplements. We still have so much to learn about brain function; 2. Nootropics offer patent holders opportunities to make obscene amounts of money. As long as those supplements are (generally) safe to consume. That level of review requires R&D spending, but too much investigation may inadvertently reveal that these money-making “miracle” products are far less effective than the manufacturers claim.
- permo-w 4y ago
  1. is certainly true. to my mind, an accurate quantitative measure of brain function doesn't exist: you run into the fairly intractable philosophical problem of "what is brain function?" while that is true, not being 100% philosophically sound has never stopped psychology studies before - far from it 2. is also perfectly true, with the caveat that it only applies to beneficiaries of the patents. so your hypotheses account for beneficiaries of the patents, and scientists who aren't willing to broach the subject of measuring brain function, but what about the complement of those subsets? what about non-beneficiaries who are willing to quantify brain function? are they simply a small enough subset that it justifies the observation? or is there another hypothesis to be found? or perhaps the observation is flawed in itself
  - Mtinie 4y ago
    > […]or is there another hypothesis to be found? There most certainly are more hypotheses to discuss. I picked the two which came immediately to mind and passed my personal “plausible enough” check. Thank you for giving me more to consider!
- theptip 4y ago
  I don't think 1. is correct. There is a large body of research looking into different dimensions of brain function, and how different conditions impair those functions. For example, look at the N-back test for working memory. This is popular in the nootropics community, and is widely used in clinical pharmacology research. There are plenty of other tests. Scientists do experiments like "measure how impaired you are on alcohol vs. antihistamines" to compare impairment profiles from different modes of drug action. You can measure impairment from sleep deprivation, alcohol, etc., so of course you can measure improvement in attention, reaction speed, working memory, spatial reasoning, and so on. The difficulty with quantifying effects is not that we need to learn about brain function to know how to measure them, it's that nootropics have quite small effect sizes, if any. I think it's entirely about 2 -- large studies are expensive, and unless your effect size is enormous you need a large study to detect it.

abeppu 4y ago

> anyone who has looked into the evidence around nootropics can tell you that pretty much nobody wants to study that There's a class of areas where lots of non-experts are interested, but doing studies large enough to detect modest effect sizes with high confidence is too expensive. Nutrition can do either large survey studies, or small controlled experiments. Exercise researchers often have to work with a small number of untrained participants. I would love a citizen science platform for large studies of low-risk interventions operated like a multi-armed bandit setup. "Oh, you're interested improving working memory? Follow regimen X for 90 days and do this working memory test every week." I feel like the hardest parts are getting participants to adhere to their assigned intervention, and preventing participants with a pre-existing agenda from joining.

karpierz 4y ago
> I feel like the hardest parts are getting participants to adhere to their assigned intervention, and preventing participants with a pre-existing agenda from joining. This combined with perverse incentives are why it's not possible. Non-experts with the resources to solve these problems are generally trying to sell you something, and aren't particularly interested in the truth.
- abeppu 4y ago
  Perhaps so. Saying it's "not possible" seems like an overly strong conclusion. For specific interventions, I think it might be possible to have open, blinded participation. E.g. for supplements which may affect memory: - Participants sign up to buy a supplement which they know will be one of k generally safe supplements or a placebo - The specific supplement or placebo they receive it thompson sampled (or similar) from our bandit given data so far, and sent to them unlabeled - They're only able to receive their next bottle if they complete weekly tests or measurements The value prop is that you're probably buying a pretty good intervention, even if you don't know which one it is (and perhaps you're getting a discount subsidized by the minority of people who are paying for a placebo at any given time). For a number of questions related to exercise, people may fall into camps about their prior beliefs, and may self-sabotage if they're in treatment group that goes against their preferences but there isn't a clear thing to sell. E.g. which of a family of training schedules helps people reduce their 10k running time the most?