When you talk to brain-hackers from Silicon Valley, they talk of creating the perfect stack - a combination of natural and pharmaceutical nootropics that can help make them into a super-powered genius that can go hours without sleep while maintaining massive focus. It sounds like a cool way to hack the brain, but this practice can come at a price.
The problem is that many of the pharmaceutical versions (and sometimes even the natural ones) can be damaging.
In the early days, people trying to crank out loads of computer code, write the next best-selling novel, cram for a university exam, or simply party like it was 1999, used micro-doses of LSD or Adderall, a prescription drug normally used to treat ADHD, and some of these practices are still used today.
The thinking behind this phenomenon is that if supplements like glutamate, an excitatory substance to the brain and nervous system can successfully be utilized for people who have cognitive dysfunction like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, ADHD, etc., certainly these supplements could help enhance memory creativity, and cognitive performance in "normal" people.
Comment: DNA signature found in ice storm babies: Objective stress exposure of pregnant women causes long lasting changes in the epigenome of their babies