9 replies to this topic

[Nootrient]

I've read anecdotal reports and experienced myself how Noopept seems to temporarily make some people lose all interest in sex and/or masturbation. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out "why" and "how" it does this and these are some ideas I came up with. For those of you that don't know, prolactin is the hormone/chemical released after orgasm in men and that's why we have a refractory period and temporarily lose interest in sex after we orgasm. Though I have never seen any data on Noopept (also known as GVS-111) having impact on prolactin levels, i think there is reason to suspect that it might.

 

I'm basing this idea on the fact that that prolactin is known to be involved in neurogenesis during fetal development and has also been observed to promote neurogenesis in the brains of mothers. http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/21820505 .

 

Prolactin is also known to prevent the decreasing of neurogenesis in the hippocampus and is beneficial to neurons. Here's a a source

"Torner L, Karg S, Blume A, Kandasamy M, Kuhn HG, et al. (2009) Prolactin
prevents chronic stress-induced decrease of adult hippocampal neurogenesis
and promotes neuronal fate. J Neurosci 29: 1826–1833."

 

And finally, here is another interesting quote involving prolactine/neurogensis in the SVZ in mice.

 

"ERK5 is also expressed in SVZ (
Pan, Kuo, Storm, & Xia, 2012
).
Deletion of ERK5 reduces adult neurogenesis in the SVZ and olfac-
tory bulb (OB) of the ERK5 icKO mice. ERK5 has also been impli-
cated in prolactin stimulation of adult neurogenesis in the SVZ/
OB (
Wang et al., 2013
)."

 

I'm starting to suspect based on my research that prolactin is an absolutely neccessity when it comes to neurogenesis, even in adults. If anyone can confirm or present a counterpoint to this please do so. If this is indeed the case, that prolactin is absolutely critical.....then not only noopept, but ANY nootropic that promotes/enhances neurogenesis will also have an impact on prolactin in one way or another. That's not neccessarily a bad thing...any potential negatives would depend on HOW any given nootropic regulates/promotes prolactin.

 

Why do I think Noopept could be affecting prolactine? Well, Noopept contains proline. Here's a source. http://jop.sagepub.c.../21/6/611.short

 

Here's another one that doesn't really support my theory directly, but it does show somewhat of a relationship between proline and prolactine. http://www.jbc.org/c...0/18/10664.long

 

Noopept does not seem to have this sex interest-diminishing effect on everyone so I'm suspecting that the prolactin elevation (assuming that it's actually happening) isn't completely over the top. If it were REALLY shooting up prolactin levels, then people would be growing man boobs and producing breast milk. I'm suggesting that it just might be elevating the prolactin to a level just high enough to impair sexual interest.

 

Any thoughts to add, research to contribute, or criticisms to make?

 

 

 

 

 

[Nootrient]

I found a corroborating post so I'm not the only one that has observed this possibility. So far I've posted the OP to here and reddit (No response or further input from anybody of scientific significance), even posted a seperate post asking about the mechanisms and plausibility of relationships to r/askscience.....so far no replies. I'm quoting the post in question here.

 

"In one study with cabergoline, 60 healthy males, between the ages of 22 and 31, normally needed a break of 19 minutes between lovemaking sessions. However, after taking cabergoline, they were able to have several orgasms within a few minutes. Medical psychologist Manfred Schedlowski, who was involved in the trials at Essen in Germany, said the drug raised the libido to enable the male to orgasm again more quickly.
Cabergoline was reported to have no side effects on men during the tests; however, there may be a drawback. There is evidence that the release of prolactin, which surges during orgasm, promotes the growth of new neurons in the brain--a process called neurogenesis.

Researchers at the University of Calgary discovered that the release of prolactin spurs the growth of new brain cells in the front regions of the brain involved in smell. So Cabergoline may allow men to have multiple orgasms at the expense of less brain growth. Sounds like a pretty tough call to me. Cabergoline is available by prescription, as well as through overseas pharmacies."

 

The url for the original post is https://www.drugs-fo...ad.php?t=184914.

 

So the worse case scenario here, is increasing neurogenesis may impact your sex drive negatively if this line of thinking is correct. That's not so great because that's exactly what we want a good nootropic to do. But on the bright side, should all be reversible. We also already have the chemicals to turn into hyper sexual multi-orgasmic maniacs. Which is good. Block the prolactin with bromocriptine or cabergoline, perhaps help out the dopamine a little with selegiline, and then take a PDE5 inhibitor (viagra, icarrin, etc....). Add in some zinc, magnesium, selenium, and b6 and you've got a very potent sex machine stack going on. Rock hard erections with increased seminal volume and little to no refractory period.

 

Anybody with reason to doubt the relationship between prolactin and neurogenesis, please post. Any input at all concerning the relationship between proline and prolactin would be greatly appreciated.

[jaiho]

That makes sense, because ive been taking NSI-189 for abit over a month and have had little sexual interest, and even some orgasm anhedonia.

[Nootrient]

That makes sense, because ive been taking NSI-189 for abit over a month and have had little sexual interest, and even some orgasm anhedonia.

 

Now that I think about it, there was a useful post in the reddit thread. There was a guy there as well that said he noticed a drop in libido on NSI-89 too. To partially quote him:

 

"I feel that it may be possible for NSI-189 to have a prolactin side effect, based on my lasting drop in libido.

Am considering EOD mucuna puriens to see if that improves things."

 

High prolactin levels are also thought to be one of the potential causes for sexual anhedonia. Thanks for the data. Have you noticed any cognitive improvements on the NSI-89? I definitely noticed cognitive improvements simultaneously with the lack of sexual interest effect on the noopept. That's what gave me the idea originally.

[jaiho]

Yes. memory improvements, less brain fog. increased verbal fluency, recall. Less depression symptoms. I was chasing the highetened emotional affect since i suffer extreme emotional numbness. I received what i was looking for, for about a week. That effect has disappeared since i switched to teamTLR's NSI-189. Unknown if the cause is due to the switch, or due to some kind of tolerance build up.

My original source for NSI has since refrained from selling it due to the threat of legal action from Neuralstem. I'd very much like to get more from them because it's a reliable source.

Unfortunately THT & TeamTLR aren't too transparent on their CoAs.

 

[jroseland]

Interesting! Although I think the net positive affect of Nootropics will do nothing but fire up libido. I'm on Day 11 of no fab and have some Noopept arriving shortly so I will test this personally!

[Nootrient]

Interesting! Although I think the net positive affect of Nootropics will do nothing but fire up libido. I'm on Day 11 of no fab and have some Noopept arriving shortly so I will test this personally!

 

I hope your right about the net positive effects. Let me know what your experience with it is like. I've thought since I noticed the effect how much the nofap community would love the noopept.

 

The good news is, there is no evidence that any nootropic permanently affects prolactin level, even if im right about some of them affecting it in the short term (even that isn't proven). I read one guy's experience with the noopept libido effect. He said that he loved it, because as an unforeseen side effect of that.....he found himself less anxious around beautiful women (their sexuality was not as intimidating to him as it was before) and ended going out with some beauties waaaay above what he was used to on the attractiveness scale.

 

He also said that it's slightly harder to get aroused initially, but once aroused there is no difference compared to being off the noopept.

[perplex]

has anyone tested this theory?

[airplanepeanuts]

The initial post is full of nonsense..

 

Even if Noopept contains Proline it's a tiny amount because of the common dosage, much less than than in food. Also there does not even seem to be a known direct link between Proline and Prolactine (they sound similar I give you that...)

 

Even if Prolactin is somehow implicated in neurogenesis (or even critical),  that does NOT mean any neurogenesis promoting substance will affect it. That is just basic logic.

[perplex]

I really enjoyed the benefits of noopept but had to stop due to a steep libido crash. Labs afterwards revealed excess prolactin and high estrogen. One cannot attribute that to noopept. but I personally believe that people who are genetically vulnerable (e.g-methylation defects), certain 'tropics might put an extra strain on their detox systems that they can't afford - ultimately leading to a myriad of side-effect - including hormonal imbalance. 

 

I agree with you about the proline though.

Edited by perplex, 07 July 2015 - 01:22 PM.