I found a possible negative aspect of Lion's Mane / NGF...
I've been taking it for a few months now and stopped taking it. (Both mycelium and fruiting body, each alone or combined,)
It definetely increased my emotional memory, overall memory, resilience and well-being, primary my sensual/peripheral sensibility: hearing, vision, touching, smelling.
The mycelium from foodforconsciousness (cannot post links) was the best I think, I could use it as a stress relief in the evening and to be able to absorb more information during my evening activities.
The activated fruiting body from mushroomharvest was more intense and not so comfortable. While the mycelium needed a few days to have the effect on vision, it took just about a part of a day or a night to let me notice an obvious difference in vision. I did not notice a the itching with the mycelium but with the fruiting body, so I concluded that the NGF effect is stronger then.
Now the bad sides:
I think it was too subtle with the mycelium but the fruiting body increased my OCD as fast as it increased my vision and after a research I did, I found out that
elevated levels of NGF and lowered levels of BDNF correlate with the severity of OCD. It's one recent study out there (cannot post links) that also says that this is just correlation and does not necessary display a cause.
Further research led me to the link between NGF and Acetylcholine (ACh) and the link between BDNF and serotonin. Easily you can say that NGF is the important neurotrophin for cholinergic fibers while BDNF is relevant for serotonergic fibers. (Look up the MoA of SSRIs). It is also known that elevated levels of ACh aggravate OCD symptoms and hightened levels of serotonin help OCD/Anxiety.
So it makes sense that Lion's Mane made feel more OCD and more anxious (something feels wrong).
That's why I focus more on BDNF right now (Gotu Kola, Ashwagandha, Curcumin and soon NSI-189), NGF seems to be the wrong neurotrophin for me and surely others with OCD. (I've also read a link between OCD/Anxiety/Depression and ACh/NGF/Lion's Mane) somewhere on this forum.
Edited by aphex, 16 March 2014 - 07:38 PM.