

“But across populations, there is still no conclusive proof that substances of this class improve cognitive functions.” And with no way to reliably measure the impact of a given substance on one’s mental acuity, one’s sincere beliefs about “what works” probably have a lot to do with, say, how demanding their day was, or whether they ate breakfast, or how susceptible they are to the placebo effect. “Certain people might benefit from certain combinations of certain things,” he told me. Good news for aspiring biohackers-and for people who have no aspirations to become biohackers, but still want to be Bradley Cooper in Limitless (me). The flip side, though? There’s no need to procure a prescription in order to try them out.

This means that, in practice, nootropics may not live up to all the grandiose, exuberant promises advertised on the bottle in which they come. Since dietary supplements do not require double-blind, placebo-controlled, pharmaceutical-style human studies before going to market, there is little incentive for companies to really prove that something does what they say it does. “If you find a study that says that an ingredient caused neurons to fire on rat brain cells in a petri dish,” says Pieter Cohen, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, “you can probably get away with saying that it ‘enhances memory’ or ‘promotes brain health.’” And the types of claims that the feds do allow supplement companies to make are often vague and/or supported by less-than-compelling scientific evidence. But most of the appeal of smart drugs lies in the simplicity of their age-old premise: Take the right pill and you can become a better, smarter, as-yet-unrealized version of yourself-a person that you know exists, if only the less capable you could get out of your own way.įederal law classifies most nootropics as dietary supplements, which means that the Food and Drug Administration does not regulate manufacturers’ statements about their benefits (as the giant “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease” disclaimer on the label indicates). The resurgent popularity of nootropics-an umbrella term for supplements that purport to boost creativity, memory, and cognitive ability-has more than a little to do with the recent Silicon Valley-induced obsession with disrupting literally everything, up to and including our own brains.
