Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,alt.psychoactives

I'm not sure, so I've added ALT.PSYCHOACTIVES to the list, since
they seem to discuss them there.  

Nootropics, from what I can tell, is pretty much an offshoot of pharmacological
memory research, promoting an emphasis on enhancement of cognitive and
memory functions rather than prophylaxis or treatment of memory disorders,
or illumination of memory mechanisms, as most of the original research was 
doing years back when Vasopressin and Piracetam were among the only
compounds in this category, and there was no such commonly used term
as Nootropics.

_Some_ popularly labelled 'smart' chemicals are more nutritional in nature,
often based on the notion that dietary precursors for some neurotransmitters or
neuromodulators can beneficically influence brain chemistry.  This has
some legitimate theoretical basis, as with Dr. Wurtman's research at MIT,
but seems to have little reliable clinical support as anything you could use
practicall to  improve your performance at complex mental tasks.
While dietary variations can influence levels of brain signalling chemicals, 
the nutritional supplements commonly seen seem to effect mental function at 
best haphazardly when at all.

_Pharmaceutical_ nootopics (as opposed to the dietary supplements)
sometimes have definite neurological effects, but conclusions about the 
significance of those effects in enhancing human mental functions appears
very premature.  

There is a good review of 'Smart Drugs' by Steven Rose in the April 17,1993
issue of _New_Scientist_.  He surveys the medical literature, evaluates
its quality, and draws some tentative general conclusions about the value
of these drugs.  His overall conclusion is that someone looking for 
mental performance enhancement would be better advised to seek it
in ancient mnemonic techniques than modern pharmaceuticals.

The same issue also has an article on the general subject, including the
    consumer industry around 'Smart' chemicals.  

A popular introductory text on drug actions in the brain; Cooper, Bloom, and 
Roth's _Biochemical_Basis_of_Neuropharmacology_, devotes a section at the end
    to the question "Are there natural memory drugs ?"

    The 6th edition (1991) states ...

    "Back in the third edition, in our last outing onto the sea of
    memory modulators, we mentioned the growing literature on the ability
    of natural hormones such as vasopressin and adrenocorticotropin
    (ACTH), as well as 'endocrinologically inert' fragments derived
    from them, either to repair learning deficiencies in hypophysectomized
    rats or to delay or accelerate the extinction of a previously learned
    performance.  

    "Unfortunately, as pathways containing these peptides were more clearly
    defined in their projections to targets other than the posterior
    pituitary, and as the known barriers to diffusion of these peptides
    from the blood stream into the brain were shown to apply to all of
    them, this once promising area became a source of contention.  However,
    this body of research remains an important case study for scholars of
    the neuropharmacology of behavior."

    They later add, after a discussion of the voluminous research on 
    vasopressin in particular ...

    "Future research will probably establish the superficiality of such
    interpretations as the following : (1) vasopressin acts directly
    on 'memory processes'; (2) vasopressin can be an aversive
    hormone than when given at non-physiological doses arouses the
    animal who then learns better.  We await eagerly the answers to this
    mind-drug-behavior puzzle, but they may not be found in the next
    edition, either."