Nootropics Explained: How They Actually Work for Your Brain

Attention is the new currency, isn't it? It feels like we all have some degree of ADHD now, even if we didn't grow up that way. And regardless of the reason, this has driven massive interest in nootropics, compounds that improve focus, memory, and creativity. In this video, I'm going to walk you through the most popular nootropics, how and why they work, some important safety considerations, and give you the ability to decide what actually belongs in your supplement cabinet. I'm going to do this with an illustration of how your brain works to focus and learn, because once you understand that, nootropics stop feeling random. And just a quick disclaimer here, even though I am a doctor, I am not your doctor. I am just a doctor on the internet. This is not medical advice. All right, let's start with an analogy here. Let's think of your brain as a recording studio. In order to record a track, you don't just need the musicians. You need a studio that works properly. You need the sound or the talent. A producer, a soundproof room, electricity, and a hard drive to record the track on. And if any one of those fails, your rendition of All I Want for Christmas just never sees the light of day. So let's build this studio inside your brain, shall we? Okay, if you're getting into learning or focus mode, you need a signal, and that signal in your brain is primarily acetylcholine, which is made up of acetyl-CoA and choline, which I'll talk about more later. You can think of acetylcholine as like the sound or the singer's voice in the studio. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter of attention, learning, and memory encoding. It's what tells your brain to pay attention. This is important. Now, we have several compounds and supplements that can support acetylcholine in the brain, such as alpha-GPC, which is a highly bioavailable form of choline, which you need to make acetylcholine. So sometimes people choose Alpha GPC to provide the signal to give their brain the supplies it needs just to focus. And just as an FYI, some people can feel depressed or flat on Alpha GPC. Sometimes you can have too much acetylcholine in your brain, so beware of that. Citicoline is another nootropic that's similar to Alpha GPC because it also boosts acetylcholine, but indirectly. Some people think Alpha GPC is more of an acute memory booster or better for immediate focus, whereas citicoline can help with more long-term ability to learn. Then there's Noopept. Noopept is a very popular nootropic that enhances acetylcholine signaling. It increases the brain's sensitivity to acetylcholine. It also raises levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, and nerve growth factor, which play into learning and memory as well. Basically, Noopept works by making the sound quality better. Now I hope you like those explanations because the rest is just building on this. Now let's talk about the producer in the studio, dopamine. Dopamine doesn't make the music better, it actually decides what's important and what's worth recording. You see, dopamine is motivation. You can't learn or focus well without wanting to. It just doesn't work well. When dopamine is low in your brain, your producer is asleep. Everything feels unimportant, and focus and memory formation is just not good. And this is why dopamine is such a big deal in things like ADHD and andropause and menopause, states where you have a harder time focusing. You see, in ADHD, dopamine in the frontal cortex of the brain is often very low. And in menopause and andropause, estrogen levels drop, and estrogen increases dopamine sensitivity in the brain. So if you have low dopamine in the brain from any one of those conditions, you can't focus very well. And if you have low dopamine and an inability to focus, you can consider tricks or compounds that influence dopamine to make learning feel worth the effort. This is why stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin work, but those aren't nootropics. For this video, influencing dopamine can include things like caffeine. Caffeine basically wakes your producer up by blocking its ability to fall asleep. It increases dopamine signaling this way. Then there's nicotine. Nicotine pulls the producer directly to the console by activating nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. It's extremely effective, but it's also addictive. And so I don't want you thinking this is me encouraging you to use nicotine, but that's why people use it to wake up and focus. Let's talk about Semax. Semax is a peptide used in Russia and Ukraine. It's not approved for human use elsewhere, but where it is approved, it's used for focus and cognitive precision. It supports dopamine channeling in a way that's steady rather than stimulating, especially under stress. Cool, right? Now let's imagine trying to record a song while there's noise and construction outside, much like 5 minutes ago when my neighbor got their leaf blower out. Anyway, that's what learning feels like when you're under stress. Like, if you have excess cortisol and adrenaline going, it's like having background noise. Sirens, jackhammers. And believe it or not, the brain simply doesn't record well in chaos. Stress doesn't help learning. It actually shuts down memory encoding. In fact, trauma and stressful environments and childhood experiences are strongly related to developing ADHD. And that's why, you see, this is where a calm and relaxed state can become a performance enhancer. Now, there are 2 supplements that we can use to help our brains get into that relaxed state. They don't replace your body's ability to de-stress, but they can help. Let's talk about L-theanine. L-theanine is a supplement that increases alpha brainwaves, which are associated with a relaxed state of alertness. Exactly what we need to learn. It also helps increase GABA and modulates neuroexcitation or overstimulation. L-theanine basically puts soundproof walls into the studio. Then there's magnesium L-threonate. Magnesium L-threonate is able to cross the blood-brain barrier in order to regulate receptors necessary for learning and plasticity. It stabilizes your neurons and also prevents overstimulation. In fact, higher brain magnesium has been associated with improved working memory and learning. It's basically supporting the acoustics in the room. So the next time you're stressed about a deadline, try to remember that. And if you're a boss, Don't stress out your employees. It can backfire on you. All right, let's talk about the electricity in the studio. Learning is very metabolically expensive. Neurons need ATP, the energy currency of your body, in order to fire, communicate, and strengthen connections. If the power flickers, the session just crashes. You can translate that into a feeling of, you know, brain fog or fatigue, or that I just can't think straight today feeling. And this is where creatine can quietly shine. Creatine increases phosphocreatine. Creatine stores in your brain, allowing faster ATP or energy regeneration. In simple terms, it's like having a backup generator for your studio. Now, a lot of you may be using caffeine to turn the power on, but creatine can keep it going, especially when the musician is getting tired. And finally, the most important part: you can have the singer on fire, the producer focused, the room quiet and soundproofed, and the power stable, But if nothing gets saved or recorded, well, what was the point? And this is where we bring in neuroplasticity and brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which I mentioned earlier, BDNF. Neuroplasticity is what allows the brain to form and strengthen new neural connections. And believe it or not, we have some things that can influence levels of BDNF and also something that can influence nerve growth factor. I also talked about that earlier. Bacopa monnieri, Bacopa slowly updates and improves the structure of the hard drive. It has the ability to enhance your long-term memory formation. It's really cool. It has this ability to promote the growth of dendrites, which are the receivers on your neurons. And now it's more of a long-term supplement though. You have to use it for 2 to 3 months to see this change. Then there's lion's mane. This is a popular one, right? Well, in cellular and animal research, lion's mane has been shown to have the ability to stimulate nerve growth factor. And nerve growth factor tells neurons to grow, repair, and maintain connections. And the peptide Semax can fit in here again because it highly influences brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression. Now there's also another peptide, Dihexa, which in animal studies at least has been shown to be up to a million times more potent than BDNF at increasing neural connections. It was discovered in Alzheimer's research in rodents, and supplementing with it reversed memory and cognitive decline in the animals. It does this by influencing a pathway that is heavily expressed in cancer cells too, however, and we don't have any human studies on it, unfortunately. So it's not approved for human use, but the science on it is quite fascinating. All right, I hope that was fun or at least interesting for you. It can be helpful to break things down into understandable stories or puzzles that make sense when you put them together. And now that you understand how your brain learns, Hopefully you have some new tools to play with. With nootropics, no single compound can build an entire recording studio, but once you understand the studio, you can stop chasing hype and start choosing tools. I'm Dr. Ashley Frazee. I'm a primary care physician, and I love to learn these kinds of things in order to empower you to think before you buy something or before you let someone influence you in a way that doesn't make sense. If you like this video, please hit like for me, tell me about it in the comments, subscribe to my channel, and have the best day ever.