Piracetam is a “memory enhancing”1 chemical in the “racetam” family of chemicals. It’s used widely by those willing to try new things in order to get an “edge” in the nootropic family of chemicals. It was first manufactured thirty years ago, and to date is one of the oldest known nootropics.

You can currently experience some of the effect of Piracetam by drinking Neuro Fuel, an energy drink sold in the United States. The interesting bit about the Neuro Fuel website is that they cite the gains of taking Piracetam on the web page itself. Of course, the description they give is slightly inaccurate, when compared to the medical journals I’ve browsed on the topic. Still, it’s nice to know they’re not shoving a totally unresearched chemical down your throat, unbeknownst to you.

I’ve enjoyed Neuro Fuel, but I think it’s time to move on to “big boy” stuff. So I ordered from Cerebral Health. I’m going to give Piracetam a real go, to see how well I do on it. I’ll be sure to update with information as I go. Now I just have to find myself a choline supplement.2

I think I’m most interested in the fact that Piracetam is supposed to have a positive impact on mood. I would benefit a great deal from this. It appeared to have that sort of an effect when I was drinking several cans of Neuro Fuel in a day. Of course, ceasing to drink it left me back at square one, so I’m going the “bulk” route to see if it can give me overall gains. I’ll post on progress as my experience goes on. The only problem I can foresee is my attention span dwindling, and my finding out about other nootropic substances, possibly even trying others in the racetam family. That will not only contaminate my little trial, but derail me completely. I do, after all, have the attention span of a circus monkey.3

For more excellent information on Piracetam, google it and check out the Wikipedia entry. You can also read up on the rest of the “racetams”, but the vast majority of information I’m seeing says that Piracetam is found to be the best balance between “effective” and “inexpensive”.

Yes. Piracetam has an erowid entry. Now go, read things, learn things, take things. Better your life through chemistry. Gogogogo.

  1. “In healthy volunteers, the drug enhances recall of learned information, increases verbal capacity and improves mental functioning under certain conditions.”
    Adis Online ↩︎

  2. “Although experiments in rats have shown that piracetam plus choline has a superior effect to either agent administered alone, results in human trials have been equivocal.”
    Adis Online ↩︎

  3. Me  ↩︎