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[msied]

I'm taking a pretty big standardized test in a couple weeks that pretty much makes or breaks my chances for grad school later on. I've played with nootropics for taking this test and it's working out pretty great so far! But the one bottleneck I found is mental stamina. At the start of the practice exams I've taken, I'm in just the right focus and clarity I want to be in, but with time both of those tend to drop due to sheer brain energy drain. Is there any nootropic that can keep me bumping and have my brain replenish those glycogen stores on the go for a few hours?

If your answer is slow-digesting carbs like oatmeal, I'm afraid it might not work. In my google scholar lookups for this topic (can't seem to locate the article right now), I found that brain glycogen is synthesized locally and is entirely unrelated to energy metabolism through the liver (proven by looking at brain glycogen levels in the fasting/starving person's brain in comparison to non-fasted).

[Zoroaster]

I don't know that brain glycogen is the only factor here since steady blood glucose levels will still feed your brain and reduce its reliance on local glycogen stores no? So if that's the case slow digesting carbs would still be helpful. Are there any breaks during the test? If so your problems are solved since there are any number of quick digesting carbs you could use "Waxy Maize is great" to give you a quick boost.

Though seriously this seems like a caffeine situation to me. When I took a long standardized test a couple years ago, I took some penguin mints in with me. Each has like 15 mg of caffeine. And I sucked on them throughout the test. Probably went through 16 or so. Gave me a steady slow source of caffeine that built up in my system as the test went on. I was actually more alert at the end of the 5 hour test than I was at the beginning.