Author Topic: Cure Sleeping? Nootropics? (Read 138 times)

Vesp · « **on:** February 22, 2010, 06:19:37 AM »

I'm not a big fan of sleeping, when I must sleep I have difficulty, and once I finally fall asleep, I have a hard time waking up. I figure I also loose a good part of my life to it as well, assuming I get the 6-8 hours every single day. I like to believe that eventually there will be a drug of some sort that either eliminates the need for sleep, or eliminates the need for as much sleep. If it improves mental ability, that would also be a huge bonus.

While this is probably wishful thinking, it seems like they've came a long way with drugs that keep you awake, or needing less sleep while being able to function normally. An example of this is modafinil. I'd like to discuss various drugs that could possibly do this as well as how they do it.

So, I'll be updating this thread with the information I find out about modafinil, and its derivatives as well as items such as Orexin-A, and others that do not cause the "unstable" stimulation that caffeine and amphetamines do..

For now, do you know of any other wakefulness promoting agents?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakefulness-promoting_agent

Ampkines and recetam derivatives I think also have big potential for decreased need of sleep, and increased cognition.

I'll add more information later.. but anyways, do you know something about possible drugs that might do what I am interested in?

Enkidu · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2010, 06:26:36 PM »

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/sleep_deprivation

Baba_McKensey · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2010, 01:06:27 AM »

I found that piracetam, acetyl-carnitine and vitamin B-12 tend to have stimulant properties and cause some insomnia when taking too much. I usually have to catch up on my sleep later on though, just like with other stimulants. Piracetam is bitter. I usually put a pinch into a cup of coffee or beer when I'm drinking beer sometimes. I don't like the taste of it in orange juice or other sweet beverage. See http://www.piracetam.com

Vesp · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2010, 01:22:20 AM »

Yeah, I take piracetam and a B complex about everyday. I notice nothing really, but I think it is good for me.
I'd like to try some of the more powerful derivatives, esp. if they are more active ampkines. Ampkines seem like a great variety of drugs to take for learning purposes.

Quote

Unlike earlier stimulants (e.g. caffeine, methylphenidate (Ritalin), and the amphetamines), ampakines do not seem to have unpleasant, long-lasting side effects such as sleeplessness.

This one seems interesting:

Quote

IDRA-21 shows nootropic effects in animal studies, significantly improving learning and memory. It is around 10-30x more potent than aniracetam in reversing cognitive deficits induced by alprazolam or scopolamine,[2][3] and produces sustained effects lasting for up to three days after a single dose.[4] The mechanism for this action is thought to be through promoting the induction of long-term potentiation between synapses in the brain.[5]

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDRA-21

Some other stuff:

Quote

Modafinil, (RS)-2-(Diphenylmethylsulfinyl)acetamide, is a well known wake promoting drug used for the treatment of narcolepsy. We investigated the effect of modafinil on the hypothalamic histamine release in the anesthetized rat using in vivo microdialysis. Modafinil (150 mg/kg, i.p.) increased histamine release by 150% of the basal release. The intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injection of modafinil (1 nmol) also increased histamine release, however, when modafinil (1 nmol) was injected directly into the tuberomammillary nucleus, a limited region where cell bodies of the histaminergic neurons are located, histamine release was not altered. These observations suggest that modafinil may promote waking via the activation of the histaminergic system, although it does not appear to be a direct pharmacological target of modafinil.

-- http://www.modafinil.com/histamine.html

http://www.modafinil.com/sleepswitch.html

quetzalcoatl · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2010, 09:21:12 PM »

For me, piracetam seems to reverse the negative side effects of cannabis use, which I have cut down vastly and stopped, in the last few months (yay!)
now I rarely smoke at all (totally chuffed.) i'd reccomend it for anyone who is a chronic user, you'll see vast improvements in your energy levels, motivation
etc.

Anyway, when I take piracetam (for studying) it improves my mental abilities. clearer thought processes, more focused. maybe a placebo effect, but definately more
confident too(?)

There is definatley a couple negatives though: the main one for me is anxiety. I do get anxious sometimes after taking it for a couple weeks. It sorta builds up gradually;
and to counteract this i'd reccomend using blue lotus resin which is very calming and sedative. You can feel it working immediately and the positive effects begin
the morning after and persist for weeks. You can buy it from EveryoneDoesIt.Com and its pretty cheap.

Vesp · « **Reply #5 on:** July 08, 2010, 09:37:57 AM »

http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877%2801%2991472-0/abstract

If anyone can get that, I'd be interested in seeing it, or any other articles fairly similar to it, that help try to pin point the purpose of sleep.

I really hate sleep.

Tsathoggua · « **Reply #6 on:** July 08, 2010, 02:57:20 PM »

It is essential for proper memory consolidation for one.

And IIRC it fills the purpose of clearing the buffers in short term memory, after a while it gets full in there and all the unused crap needs purging.

Curing sleep sounds like a really bad idea, look at what happens to victims of fatal familial insomnia, they can't sleep, ever, and slowly decline cognitively and become raving paranoid psychotics, then die after a year or so.

Sedit · « **Reply #7 on:** July 08, 2010, 03:51:49 PM »

I think what Tsathoggua is saying is true and the whole issue of curing sleep is being attacked from the wrong angle. Focus is put on stimulating the already awaken mind when more effort should be directed at better sleeping pills. If one where able to achieve the needed resetting of the mind that sleep causes or run the process concurrent with the awakened mind(something I feel many mental illnesses [1] ) then sleep could be dramaticly cut down.

I have recently started taking Piracetam myself and while I can say there is something there I have much worries about the compound prehaps many unfounded. I began getting a cold and alot of other issues AT the same time I began a daily intake so I must stop and wait before evaluating this substance any longer. I fear it has immune system depression abilitys because I awoke the very next day with a cold sore which I rarely get. Its very possible its a natural occurance but I wish to be safe first an look more into it. I have also noticed a slight strangeness in the fight or flight mechanism as well having almost hit a deer while driving my mind was instantly put into a semirare for me state where I seen figures of people in the road and "ghost animals" as I call them jumping out constantly for atlest 10-20 minutes after and a marked increase in highlevels of alertness for the rest of the night. The only subtance I know of to cause the "ghost figures" is a highlevel of diphenylhydramine. It appears as though there is an army of people ahead of you at all times by about 100ft or so and trees and objects in the corner vision will appear to walk around.

There are cases of people who rarely sleep with little ill effect but they are the exception and not the rule. Study of there minds would be key.

There is also the idea of the 20minute recharge nap where the Na/K levels in the brain reset themselfs so to speak and give a greater level of alertness. I honestly feel this is the barrier that can be reached one day or at the verylest approched by about an hour or so but never crossed.

[1]Running the two processes of sleep and awake together however would I feel breach into an unknown state of conciousness only seen during forms of meditation and psychosis and I feel will appear as jumbled thoughts to any outside observer unable to comprehend the speed at which thoughts are running in the persons brain. What good are thoughts that run faster then they can be expressed? It would be akin to the CPU spitting out the answer before the motherboard finished its request.

Tsathoggua · « **Reply #8 on:** July 08, 2010, 05:57:47 PM »

I think as far as cognitive enhancers go, there is going to be a lot of promise in in the AMPAkines and drugs that increase release/decrease catabolism of neurotrophic factors such as NGF and BDNF.

Seemingly serotonin-mediated antidepressive effects as well as glutamate stimulation of AMPA receptor-mediated mood elevation (which seemingly happens, in addition to the more well known effects on fast excitatory neurotransmission, hippocampal LTP etc converge on the CREB pathway leading to an increase in the release of BDNF.

Cerebrolysin interests me quite a lot, a novel injectable nootropic derived from porcine brain hydrolysate that contains a load of neurotrophic peptides, and seems to provide some pretty impressive neuroprotective properties, as well as longterm memory enhancement (we are talking multiple months or years with 3-5 cycles of treatment per year)

I am looking forward to trying the piperazine AMPAkine sunifiram, although the pigs have my glassware, which is currently holding me back and pissing me off in equal measure.

I have tried piracetam with good results, and recently, huperzine A, I have some pretty shitty memory and cognitive 'brain fog' along with attention span problems after the last few years to the extent of finding myself trying to make food and pouring it off the plate straight into the bin, on 'autopilot', going into the kitchen and just standing there until my housemate came and found me, not being able to recall the previous sentence or two in a conversation, and forgetting I ever had the conversation not long after.

After I started on the huperzine-A, damn, I was very surprised by the dramatic improvement, I stopped acting like a fucking alzheimer's patient and was able to function again.

Since I ran out recently, its all back to shit again and I'm stuck with MDPV (well proprietary MDPV/pentylone mixture) that at least gives me some motivation.

If I sleep less, than usual or am at ALL sleep deprived, then my memory and cognitive abilities go from bad to shockingly awful, sleep isn't something that one should seek to reduce IMO.

Although am I tripping here, or did I read somewhere that some orexin derivative act in sleep deprived subjects to restore cognitive performance to baseline levels?

zajcek01 · « **Reply #9 on:** July 08, 2010, 08:25:27 PM »

No Tsathoggua, you are right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orexin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orexin-A
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/sleep_deprivation

Sedit · « **Reply #10 on:** July 27, 2010, 11:26:57 PM »

Do some searching for unilateral sleep. I wish I could provide a decent reference but I can't it does not seem like a fully studied subject at all. Its something I heard of the other day off of TV and its what allows dolphines to stay awake constantly by only sleeping with half of there brain at a time. They seem to retain there smarts pretty well and even after 6 days of straight congnitive test on locating a diver far out in the water they showed no decline in performance.

Vesp · « **Reply #11 on:** July 28, 2010, 12:18:46 AM »

Wow Interesting, I did not even think of this..
Many people have had their hemispheres separated, and some only have half of their brain. I believe that when I get the chance I shall look into unilateral sleep, and how these people sleep, etc. Though, I don't as of yet see how this would lead to much use in trying to cure sleep, it seems like it might help just create a better understanding, and point to something else.
hopefully it will.

salat · « **Reply #12 on:** July 28, 2010, 01:08:37 AM »

Modafinil is great for eliminating the need to sleep. It acts very differently from amphetamine in terms of alertness and elminating the need to sleep.

Sleep deprivation can give you a sort of spiritual awareness/high after a long enough period. We have gone as long as 5 days without sleeping (full tilt active). Of course we just about killed ourselves nodding off on the road on the way to work afterwards. But that's how you find your limits. It's a rare weekend we don't skip at least one night sleeping although I've been burning the candle at both ends and the middle for a little too long and am taking it easy these days.

After a 3 day play session with no sleep and a little higher than normal adderall dose I had some really wild visuals. It was like a bunch of brightly colored pictures/visuals flashing through my brain - almost like a conglomerate of brightly colored newspaper columns with vignettes in them. It was hard to get them to stop moving long enough to identify any of them.

I could be happy not sleeping, too much fun stuff to do.

salat

Sedit · « **Reply #13 on:** July 28, 2010, 01:15:04 AM »

Quote

I don't as of yet see how this would lead to much use in trying to cure sleep

Its exactly what unilateral sleep does. One half of the brain makes up for the other while its recharging meaning you don't ever have to be asleep. You never get the FFI syndromes from lack of REM sleep ect... you just stay awake constantly with no ill effects. Its akin to saying how we normaly need 6-8 hours of sleep, instead we will need 12hours of half sleep a day, 6 hours one side then 6 hours on the other side, but never fully lose conscieness or alertness.

The real question is, what is responsible for this to happen in dolphins. How exactly do they only put one hemisphere of the brain at a time into deep sleep.

Vesp · « **Reply #14 on:** July 28, 2010, 05:16:50 AM »

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfGwsAdS9Dc&feature=related[/youtube]

I think this is relevant, I believe with training you could get it so you could at least draw a circle and a square with both hands at the same time -- however, I don't know if you could really push that so that you could sleep with only one half of the brain. Either way, severed corpus callosums /split brain research seems relevant here.

sleeping 6 hours on each side may not matter -- they may need to still communicate with one another... since a lot of what sleep does is for memory - I believe -- this might mess up things such as LTP, etc.

What may be better is too make it so REM - or maybe another important part of sleep is only used -- and so you may only need to sleep 1:20 minutes a day instead of the suggested 8.

Author Topic: Cure Sleeping? Nootropics? (Read 138 times)

Vesp

Cure Sleeping? Nootropics?

Enkidu

Re: Cure Sleeping? Nootropics?

Baba_McKensey

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Vesp

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quetzalcoatl

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Vesp

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Tsathoggua

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Sedit

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Tsathoggua

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zajcek01

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Sedit

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Vesp

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salat

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Sedit

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Vesp

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