Summary

Piracetam is a nootropic cognitive enhancer with numerous clinically proven benefits.

Benefits and Effects

Nootropic Benefits

Piracetam may reduce age-related cognitive decline [1,2]. Moreover, piracetam may provide neuroprotective benefits as well as improve cognition after cerebral trauma [3,4].

Stroke Patients

Stroke patients, given 2,400mg piracetam twice daily showed improved blood flow to three areas of the brain responsible for sensory processing and linguistic ability. [5]

EEG data from patients taking a piracetam supplement for six weeks revealed a shift in alpha-waves from the frontal lobes to the occipital regions of the brain. [6]

Heart Surgery Patients

Bypass patients administered a 12 gram injection of piracetam before and after surgery showed less neurodegeneration than control groups. [7][8][9]

Patients With Neurodegeneration Due to Alcohol Abuse

Rat studies showed piracetam may prevent neuron loss in the hippocampus. [10]

Patients With Age-Related Cognitive Decline

A Piracetam meta-analysis showed improvement’s in cognitive impairments in elderly patients. [11] Another study showed significant improvements in short-term memory in elderly patients. [12]

Patients With Depression

Optimal piracetam dose was determined to be 2,400mg daily for two months. [13] Piracetam may also reduce depression symptoms in patients with cerebrovascular disorders. [14]

Schizophrenia Patients

Piracetam can help with involuntary movements associated with schizophrenia, [15] and help protect the glutamatergic receptors in the hippocampus of schizophrenia patients. [16]

Dyslexia Patients

Dyslexic patients demonstrated a 15 percent increase in verbal learning skills. [17] Children with dyslexia who took 3.3gm of piracetam daily for 36 weeks also demonstrated improvements on language related tests. [17]

Pain

Piracetam was able to reduce this pain by up to 41% in a rat study. Piracetam also curbs toxin-related glutathione reduction in mice. [18]

Acoustic Trauma Patients

65 percent of soldiers with acute acoustic trauma, given a combination of piracetam and prednisone experienced no long-term hearing loss. [19]

Epilepsy Patients

Piracetam may improve epilepsy symptoms in one, six and 12 month intervals. [20]

Pediatric Patients With Breath-Holding Spells

Low doses of piracetam can reduce occurrences of breath-holding spells in children between the ages of 5 months and 5 years old. [21][22][23]

Thrombosis Patients

Piracetam has demonstrated antithrombotic properties in rodents and humans. [24]

How It Works

Piracetam modulates AMPA receptors and lowers acetylcholine in the brain, both linked to memory processing [25,26,27].

Piracetam presumably boosts cognition by increasing glucose and oxygen consumption in all regions of the brain. [28]

It also protects brain cells from age-related damage while improving cellular membrane permeability. [29]

Dosage

Recommended daily adult dose is 1,200-4,800mg. Three doses of 1,600mg per day tends to produce the best benefits.

For children, the recommended dose is 40-100mg per kilogram of body weight. [30][31][32]

Piracetam has proven to be non-toxic in doses up to 12g daily over an eight week period. [33][34]

Side Effects

Side effects include agitation, anxiety, drowsiness and insomnia and headaches [35, 36] Piracetam also inhibits overall steroid synthesis. [36]

Patients with removed adrenal glands will not benefit from taking the supplement. [37]

Stacks

In animal studies, combining choline with piracetam resulted in improved memory and cognition [38].

Piracetam and choline together may increase the memory and cognitive effects of both drugs in elderly patients with slight cognitive impairments. [39][40][41]