LONGECITY

I' only aware of two acetylcholinesterase inhibitors - Huperzine and Aricept. Both are a bit cost prohibitive, is there a cheaper ACh inhibitor? I feel like these are really the key to enhancing learning. With -acetams there are too many other factors at play. ACh inhibitors are like SSRI's for serotonin and methyphenidate for dopamine. Really starting to feel like I've wasted a little money by not having an ACh inhibitor in my rotation yet.

Why not just go with galantamine if you're just interested in an ACh inhibitor? It's cheap. Smart powders has reasonable prices in 8mg doses.

Also, the half life of aricept is so long that I've noticed some pretty weird effects with it. Makes my mood unstable and unpredictable for many days.

Huperzine would be the cheapest. How is it cost prohibitive. Seems pretty cheap to me: http://www.iherb.com...blets/6335?at=0

can someone summarie the action of huperzine ? isn't Cholinesterase an important enzyme of the nervous system ?

I used Donepezil (Aricept) 5mg and found it absolutely horrible. It effected me from head to toe, from cramps, to nausea over rapid heart beat and headache, wired thoughts ...
I used it for a week than dropped it after being so stupid to combine it with ALCAR and Alpha GPC ... This made me useless for the following week, without supplements.
In my opinion AChE Inhibitors are not the first choice for healthy young individuals. I will never touch one ever again (unless I need to).
Better go for a choline source and ALCAR ...

can someone summarie the action of huperzine ? isn't Cholinesterase an important enzyme of the nervous system ?

sure man, AChesterase, think of it as the vaccuum that grabs the acetylcholine out of the receptors. So theoretically if you block the clean up crew it allows neurons to remain open longer and get ...whatever result it is you're looking for- usually learning in ACh's case. A common and easy way to think of it is similar to an SSRI, Serotonin is released at the presynaptic terminal, "caught" in the postsynaptic terminals proteins and then taken back. An SSRI blocks the clean up crew from arriving- similar to Huperzine with ACh. Same thing with Ritalin and dopamine, and let me hedge myself here, to some extent

Huperzine would be the cheapest. How is it cost prohibitive. Seems pretty cheap to me: http://www.iherb.com...blets/6335?at=0

damn thanks much man, I hadn't been to iherb- excellent website

I believe huperzine also has NDMAR antagonism, so it would impair frontal lobe activity and therefore memory consolidation. However, I do not know if the activation molarity for the NDMA receptors is substantially lower than that for the AChE.

While I have not achieved positive results with huperzine, others have, but I have heard others claim galatamine is far superior.

ecklonia cava, bacopa, ashwagandha, schizandra... there are actually quite a lot of these herbs/compounds when you think about it (i noticed memory enhancing effects from all four of these)

I never got around to trying galantamine... i hear it does crazy stuff with dreams
Edited by HyperHydrosis, 26 May 2011 - 11:12 AM.

can someone summarie the action of huperzine ? isn't Cholinesterase an important enzyme of the nervous system ?

sure man, AChesterase, think of it as the vaccuum that grabs the acetylcholine out of the receptors. So theoretically if you block the clean up crew it allows neurons to remain open longer and get ...whatever result it is you're looking for- usually learning in ACh's case. A common and easy way to think of it is similar to an SSRI, Serotonin is released at the presynaptic terminal, "caught" in the postsynaptic terminals proteins and then taken back. An SSRI blocks the clean up crew from arriving- similar to Huperzine with ACh. Same thing with Ritalin and dopamine, and let me hedge myself here, to some extent

With respect to your take on serotonin are you sure that's not MAOIs that do that? Inhibiting MAO (the clean up crew) is the mechanism of an MAOI, is it not? I thought SSRIs just blocked the re-uptake of serotonin (and actually reduce levels of serotonin synthesis in the long run) and had marginal effects on MAO depending on what type of SSRI you'd be using...? I could be wrong though, I'm no Alexander Shulgin.
I'm pretty sure all those DAergic drugs such as amphetamines work mainly in the same way by blocking the re-uptake of dopamine as well (think they are releasers as well of various NTs at various amounts).

AChEI's however, you are quite right, do work by inhibiting the breakdown of acetylcholinsterase (similar in fashion to the way MAOIs break down 5HT)
Edited by HyperHydrosis, 26 May 2011 - 11:23 AM.

ecklonia cava, bacopa, ashwagandha, schizandra... there are actually quite a lot of these herbs/compounds when you think about it (i noticed memory enhancing effects from all four of these)

I never got around to trying galantamine... i hear it does crazy stuff with dreams

But herbs just contain chemicals. It's just another medium for taking chemicals. Further, if we could isolate the active compound(s) in the herbs, we could use drug synthesis to make similar structures and get a whole class of pharmacologically similar compounds to experiment with.

For now, however, it seems we have little, if any, knowledge of what active substances are in these herbs, let alone the molecular mechanisms through which they create their purported effects. Also, last time I had checked, we had not achieved positive results to Bacopa, gingko, huperzine, lion's mane, or several other 'herbal nootropics'. By this I mean we had not determined what psychological effects result for each dosage, nor the molecular mechanism causing these effects.

Further, given that these herbs cause, in a portion of their users, undesirable side effects upon cognition (such as spaciness, fatigue), I would not immediately recommend taking them. I do feel safe in saying these herbs will probably NOT cause lasting, irreversible damage to the brain or body. They might, at the worst, throw your cognitive rhythm off track.

I would really enjoy more research on these herbs, and on nootropics in general.


Another quick chime in: I do not think it can be so simply that more acetylcholine=more learning. As one example, it is known that dopamine and acetylcholine have some amounts of antagonism for each other's receptors. So then, while one may improve memory consolidation with acetylcholine, one may simultaneously decrease concentration or attentiveness. I do mean to assert with any positiveness that this is the case, I only wish to illustrate that we cannot so easily know the psychologically implications based upon one molecular mechanism. There are many molecular mechanisms we ignore in noticing only one.
Edited by dasheenster, 26 May 2011 - 03:57 PM.

ecklonia cava, bacopa, ashwagandha, schizandra... there are actually quite a lot of these herbs/compounds when you think about it (i noticed memory enhancing effects from all four of these)

I never got around to trying galantamine... i hear it does crazy stuff with dreams

It does in fact do crazy stuff with dreams. That's how I heard about it actually. I bought it as a lucid dreaming supplement and it did in fact cause crazy dreams. That was the intended effect which unfortunately decreased rapidly. Only experienced intense dreams for about 4 days before the effects became negligible. When I'd take it during waking hours it just felt like a mild stimulant. And for most people taking it in the afternoon or morning time caused little change in dreaming.

Yeah, maintaining the bioactivity of acetylcholine is most likely only marginally effective at enhancing memory and learning. Attention or focus, whatever you want to call it, is the key. Without this, critical information that you want to consolidate into your neural architecture is treated like noise in the information streams coursing throughout the brain. Focus enables this information to resonate with pre-existing semantic structures to facilitate consolidation and it most likely creates a "clear signal", and probably a more robust one, in certain prefrontal-hippocampal circuits. I disagree that acetylcholine activity in the hippocampi is the key to learning.

ecklonia cava, bacopa, ashwagandha, schizandra... there are actually quite a lot of these herbs/compounds when you think about it (i noticed memory enhancing effects from all four of these)

I never got around to trying galantamine... i hear it does crazy stuff with dreams

But herbs just contain chemicals. It's just another medium for taking chemicals. Further, if we could isolate the active compound(s) in the herbs, we could use drug synthesis to make similar structures and get a whole class of pharmacologically similar compounds to experiment with.

For now, however, it seems we have little, if any, knowledge of what active substances are in these herbs, let alone the molecular mechanisms through which they create their purported effects. Also, last time I had checked, we had not achieved positive results to Bacopa, gingko, huperzine, lion's mane, or several other 'herbal nootropics'. By this I mean we had not determined what psychological effects result for each dosage, nor the molecular mechanism causing these effects.

Further, given that these herbs cause, in a portion of their users, undesirable side effects upon cognition (such as spaciness, fatigue), I would not immediately recommend taking them. I do feel safe in saying these herbs will probably NOT cause lasting, irreversible damage to the brain or body. They might, at the worst, throw your cognitive rhythm off track.

I would really enjoy more research on these herbs, and on nootropics in general.


Another quick chime in: I do not think it can be so simply that more acetylcholine=more learning. As one example, it is known that dopamine and acetylcholine have some amounts of antagonism for each other's receptors. So then, while one may improve memory consolidation with acetylcholine, one may simultaneously decrease concentration or attentiveness. I do mean to assert with any positiveness that this is the case, I only wish to illustrate that we cannot so easily know the psychologically implications based upon one molecular mechanism. There are many molecular mechanisms we ignore in noticing only one.

That's fair enough it's probably wise to take the conservative approach when it comes to life extension.

For what it's worth I don't use bacopa, ecklonia, galantamine, hup or ash... For the very reason that I don't believe taking them is beneficial long term. Although these are the compounds that I have noticed results with anecdotally with respect to memory (never tried galantamine or hup though). I was just listing some examples that I have come across in line with what the OP was asking for.

I do however take schizandra daily and have done for the past three months. All I have witnessed is benefits. A sharper mind (yes memory is better - my recall is undoubtably better), better libido, improved CFS symptons, seems to improve my allergy symptons quite considerably and better sleep.

Also I agree that acetylcholine isn't the basis for learning. All of your NT's play a role in everything you do, including your ability to learn, enjoy yourself, have sex, focus, read,etc,etc. And there are many, many, many neurotransmitters.