two nootropics I'm taking

[robin]

Hi, new to this forum.

I'm taking two cognitive-improving products for the past month and want to know if anyone else has tried them.

The first is Selgiline, an interesting compound that closely mimics Phenethylamine, which is an alkaloid naturally found in the brain. I'm no chemist, so I'll link to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selegiline

The second is an interesting nootropic drink called Brain Toniq. I actually found it in a Belgian chocolate shop here in Boulder, CO. It's non-caffeinated, sweetened only with organic agave (some kind of natural plant), and plants like "Eluthero" and Rodiola, but also choline and dmae. I'm finding it very effective for focus and memory.

Anyway, just checking to see if either of these are known to other members on this forum.

Robin

[rabagley]

About a month late, but I do have some info for you.

Selegiline is also known as Deprenyl and you know some details about it, given your posting of the wikipedia link. It is both a nootropic and a neuroprotectant. The dosages are radically different for those two goals.

As a nootropic, 5-10mg in tablets or 2-4mg as sublingual liquid can induce a significant mental boost. However, this quantity is risky to take for any length of time, as the operating function of the substance can change as it accumulates in your tissues (it can switch from selective MAO-B inhibition to complete MAO inhibition after sufficient accumulation). Taking "holidays" from deprenyl are essential, and because it's effects are so long lasting, the holidays should be longer than those recommended for hormone supplementation. One month on, two or three months off is rumored to be about right. Be watchful for the dietary side effects of normal MAOI (cheese, wine, etc. causing a blood pressure crash) at these doses.

As a neuroprotectant, one of it's metabolites (desmethylselegiline) acts to protect a specific part of the brain implicated in Parkinson's disease, the substantia nigra (literally: black stuff). This is where almost all of the dopamine in the brain is made, and if these cells get damaged badly enough, you've got Parkinson's. The dosage for neuroprotection increases as you age, perhaps 0.5mg/day for a 40 year old up to 5mg/day for an 80 year old. Not to get too repetitive, but for the later doses, you again have to be careful of dietary taurine in aged foods as it's likely to lose it's MAO-B specificity.

As for something called "Brain Toniq", I don't trust anything that doesn't provide a precise list of ingredients, and even then, most of the time, I don't fully understand how to measure the expected effect of the ingredients, so I opt out of most mixtures (aside from my daily multivitamin). DMAE is quite interesting, but I prefer SAM-e as a methyl donor given it's other benefits. Choline is a bit of a vague term because there are so many things that contain different variants of "choline". I found that CDP-Choline provided me the clearest benefit when stacking with piracetam. Choline from soy lecithin had the least effect (none detectable).