Status: Published in a 2015 edition of Plant Healer Magazine.

"Technologies are morally neutral until we apply them.” - William Gibson

A significant portion of my 2014 was spent developing a nootropic product. Cognition-enhancing mushrooms and botanicals had long fascinated me, so this project was a dream come true.

I have since been enveloped by a kaleidoscope of ponderings and philosophical considerations about our product. I first see the utility of such a formula. Many people are seeking support for cognitive function. I further believe that people are not innately intelligent or stupid. I see intelligence as fluid, subject to manifestation by a variety of factors and forces. I believe some people get lucky by having the correct biochemical and environmental context for their potential to actualize. I’d like the playing field to be equal, and I like that we can change and evolve our neurobiology and psyche. Then the questions came like a deluge: What message are we promoting by creating and promoting this product? What values am I, as an herbalist, advancing?

Anything that offers enhanced performance is seductive to the Western imagination. It’s beyond refute that the contemporary demands on our human bodies and minds are exceeding its design. People are working longer hours, getting less downtime, and constantly seeking to improve productivity by any means necessary. Even in the absence of such cruel dictates, the amount of information to process is exponentially increasing. Everyone is now managing an extraordinary amount of data. Eric Schmidt, former CEO at Google, estimated that a sextabyte of information was generated from the dawn of civilization to the year 2003. Now, that amount of information is created every 2 days.

Here to fill this niche are the nootropics, or substances that increase cognitive function. Far from being neutral tools of self-development, these are politically-charged substances embedded in a cultural context of obsession with productivity. To ignore the cultural context of nootropics’ surge in popularity would deprive us of some of their richest offerings. Greater productivity equals greater value and, therefore, success. This aligns with the greater goals and ideals of capitalism and the free market economy: maximum value and efficacy. However, it’s hard to retrofit biology into economic ideals.

The rise of nootropics closely parallels the development of adaptogens in the Soviet Union following WWII. Soviet physician and scientist Nikolai Lazarev created the word ‘adaptogen’ in 1947, derived from the Latin adaptare (to adjust or adapt). Adaptogen substances were developed to specifically meet the performance needs of athletes, military personnel, and government officials. The intention was to expand the working capacity of the state and buttress military strength. First, synthetic compounds were investigated. Then Israel Berhkam joined Lazarev and investigated the first botanical for adaptogenic abilities: Panax ginseng, followed by Siberian ginseng or Eleuthrococcus. (The latter was a local genus and bared less import expense.) By the 1960’s, the Soviet medical establishment was transfixed by the prospect of adaptogens. The team of adaptogen researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences grew to 1200, generating nearly 3000 trials and studies on the subject. Following the Cold War in the late 1980’s, adaptogens plummeted in priority amid economic upheaval.

The march of productivity nevertheless continues–albeit with some qualitative changes. The face of productivity today is fundamentally intellectual. Interest in nootropic use has increased sharply in tech epicenters like Silicon Valley, and dovetails with a larger group of ‘biohackers’. These self-experimenters seek to fulfill human potential by leveraging small actions for big change in the mind and body. This labor sector is composed of humans that function as information processors. The ability to lubricate the synapses and grease the cognitive gears is a non-negotiable skill to compete in the post-recession global economy.

Situated in this cultural mileu, nootropics answer the call for increased intelligence and have blossomed into a cottage industry. Like adaptogens, there is no essential mechanism of action. It’s an empirical term. They increase cognitive function by targeting metabolic and nutritional aspects of brain function.

• increasing cerebral blood flow
• upregulating growth factors like NGF, BDNF
• providing amino acid precursors (the brain has a large metabolic appetite)

There are 2 types of nootropic user-

1. People with cognitive dysfunction and impairment
2. Noonauts/neurohackers and self-experimenters, enrolling themselves in n=1 psychopharmacology experiments

The research on nootropic drugs is on the former group in disease states, extrapolated by the latter for an amplification of cognitive function. But there is a difference between correcting pathology and amplifying neural metabolism and function. The limiting factors are not the same. Both groups use the same substances but have different goals and outcomes. Some are botanicals, others nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. Some of the better-known non-botanical nootropics include:

• Caffeine - This alkaloid is the most popular legal psychoactive drug in the world. It stimulates the production of adrenaline as well as dopamine.
• Theanine - Caffeine and theanine together are the most popular (and arguably most effective) nootropic combination. In other words, coffee and green tea.
• Racetams - This is a family of compounds, of which piracetam was the first compound to be called a nootropic. These are unapproved new drug, so they are neither permitted for use as a drug nor a dietary supplement. They have been shown to be helpful in dementia-associated cognitive dysfunction. There is no definitive mechanism of action.