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An Introductory Guide to the Brain for Understanding Nootropics/TDCS etc...

The_Bioneer
The_Bioneer
July 2014
edited February 2015
in Supplements, pharmaceuticals, and nootropics
Hey guys! 

Reading a lot of stuff on here and other transhumanism/nootropic/self improvement communities I find that it's often tricky to follow what everyone's talking about and how it all works. I'm a psychology graduate but I still struggle!

I got the impression others felt the same, so I spent a day researching and compiling a big introductory guide to the brain that might act as a good 'basis' of knowledge for people and thought it might be useful here. It's 3,000+ words and took me forever lol!

Here it is: http://www.thebioneer.com/detailed-guide-to-your-brain/

I'm sharing here because I thought it could be useful... but also because I was pretty sure people here might be able to help make it better. If you spot any inaccuracies or places where you think it could be made better then please let me know as I want this to grow and improve and become a useful resource for people. Thanks a lot in advance!

Comments

Displaying all 10 comments
  1. glims
    glims
    First Anniversary Second Anniversary Third Anniversary Fourth Anniversary Fifth Anniversary First Post 10 Posts 100 Posts 500 Posts 1000 Posts You Look Familiar Welcome Committee Final Anniversary Paging Mr. F
    July 2014
    Hi there :) That's a pretty nice write up. Lots of solid information.

    would you like to contribute to our biohacking guide that we are attempt to write? It would be good to have someone with a focus on the brain take on one of the sections...

    would you please check out the "let's write a lab manual" thread. Thanks

  2. The_Bioneer
    The_Bioneer
    July 2014
    Thanks a lot! And yeah that would be very awesome, thanks for the suggestion - I'll go take a look at that thread!
  3. McSTUFF
    McSTUFF
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    July 2014
    I'd love to see a glossary. You explain things well so a list of terms written by you would be excellent.
  4. The_Bioneer
    The_Bioneer
    July 2014
    Thanks a lot :-D I do actually have plans to make some kind of glossary for the site, but it will probably be a pretty broad one!
  5. ShankT
    ShankT
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    July 2014
    It is a great article.

    I've been fiddling with brain chemistry for more than 10 years and still found information I didn't have before.

    Good job man. 
  6. The_Bioneer
    The_Bioneer
    July 2014
    Thanks a lot :-D That's great to know! I'll be adding to it over time, so hopefully it will improve. Now I'm re-learning my nooptropics to see if I can get a better understanding of them...
  7. ShankT
    ShankT
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    July 2014
    If you're looking for ways to improve upon, maybe a paragraph or two about a systematic approach would be helpful to people... some people take a few nootropics, but they overlook 75% of the chemical process that they're working with. 

    When I built my regimen (which works very well for me), I did the research to decide upon Acetylcholine as a target... Then I learned as much as I could about the precursors, agonists and antagonists of the neurotransmitter.

    From this list, I found the mechanisms behind the actions of them before choosing (what I consider) the best combination... I guess that would be termed 'synergistic'.

    Bottom line: I think many people miss the importance of addressing the chemical process as a whole by focusing on a single chemical's metabolism. Maybe your readers would be more successful if this idea was presented.
  8. atrocious00
    atrocious00
    July 2014
    great job man, thought i would let you know i added your site to stumbleupon, hopefully a ton of people find it. Thank you for all the work you put into that.
  9. The_Bioneer
    The_Bioneer
    July 2014
    Thanks a ton atrocious! I actually had some clicks from there already, that's greatly appreciated :-)

    And ShankT I hear you thanks for the feedback! I was actually thinking of writing a separate guide for 'getting started with nootropics' which would hopefully go over these points and also add how to measure the effects etc. Was also hoping to go into a few popular nootropics in detail in a future guide! I'll keep working on it!

    How did your assault on acetylcholine work out BTW? You say it's effective, would you mind sharing your stack? I used some Piracetam with choline for a while but didn't have much luck with it... 

    Thanks again for taking a look guys :-)
  10. The_Bioneer
    The_Bioneer
    July 2014
    For those who enjoyed the last one, I recently wrote this on the neuroscience of intelligence (and how to increase it) specifically:


    I'd love to hear thoughts! In the future I'll be going over how to use nootropics and then looking at other ways of boosting brain power in similar 'guides'. If people are interested I'll share here. Thanks again for your interest, it has spurred me on to write more :-)
Displaying all 10 comments