1) We established a baseline of the effects experienced by the volunteers through experience reports. We confirmed the claims of 'enhanced vision' by checking pupil dilation followed by an eye test (similar to that of color blind people). This was further cross-verified through fMRI scans.Listen folks, this supposed 'aggression' is at best on both sides but I am the only one who has been called a baffoon, a 'has been', told to STFU, leave the imminst, etc. Really???
But let's forget all that and assume good intentions as you all wish.
I have some simple questions about the first study for hyperspace if that is okay here?. I hope they can contribute to the knowledgebase for further racetam studies. I'm the last person who would be considered 'scared' of 'new' facts!
Hyperspace21...
1) You distinguish between Piracetam's 'enhanced vision' effects and normal Piracetam effects such as 'enhanced speech,cognitive function and music'. How did you solicit, baseline, and quantify the 'enhanced vision' effects from the trial participants?
2) Can you please quantify how many people experienced 'enhanced vision' effects but did also not experience normal Piracetam effects such as 'enhanced speech,cognitive function and music'?
I know you said you had to dumb down/purge PII from trial results for the forum but in doing so you left out a couple things that make it difficult to interpret your results. I am going to summarize what I think you are saying so please just correct me if I make an assumption based on your description of the findings in your 1st trial (non msg).
3) 1st set of 25 people - ALL 25 experienced normal Piracetam effects (enhanced speech,cognitive function and music) regardless of glutamate or calcium levels and without glutmate or calcium supplementation. Correct?
4) 1st set of 25 people - How many of the 11 that experienced 'enhanced vision'/regular glutamate levels had low calcium ion levels?
5) 1st set of 25 people - How many of the 14 that experienced normal Piracetam effects (enhanced speech,cognitive function and music)/low glutamate levels had low calcium ion levels
6) 2nd set of 25 people - You secretly dosed participants in 10mg increments of L-Glutamate (up to 10 times - don't worry I won't ask how ) until they exhibited signs of hyper-sensitivity measured through signs of being restless, dehydration, and decreased blood pressure? Or was a significant decrease blood pressure the only cutoff you used?
7) 2nd set of 25 people - The purpose of the 10 mg incremental dosing of this test group was to hopefully get them all at or just above normal glutamate levels before testing with Piracetam based on their hyper-sensitivity reactions to L-Glutamate, correct?
8) 2nd set of 25 people - Contrary to the results from the first group, 4 participants had no normal paricetam effects (enhanced speech,cognitive function and music) nor 'enhanced vision' effects even with normal to slightly elevated glutamate levels. Correct? (Don't worry, you don't have to explain statistical analysis and such, this is not a trick question, just yes or no)
9) 3rd set of 25 people - In this group you megadosed L-Glutamate at 5x to 50x the maximum hyper-sensitivty levels displayed in your previous group based on signs of being restless, dehydration, and a decrease in blood pressure, correct? (Again, don't worry, this is not a gottcha question nor am I implying that MIT would ever do anything unsafe with trial participants, just simple yes, no)
10) 3rd set of 25 people - 14 participants experienced normal Piracetam effects (enhanced speech,cognitive function and music) with high to too high glutamate levels and low calcium ion levels, correct?
11) What process did you use to come up with glutamate/calcium levels of participants from CSF, Lumbar puncture?
12) What was the goal of your MSG study when you already had your glutamate/calcium study lined up? Was there some research that you can point to that would imply that MSG supplementation is processed differently than L-Glutamate with respect to glutamate levels in the brain? This seems redundant if not offcourse? Can you explain or am I dingdong? (I might be!)
14) You made a point of testing 75 regular piracetam users and 75 non piracetam users in your first trial of 150 participants. I am guessing they were distributed as equally as possible in your 4 groups (12/13 per group?). You did not report any correlations in your results. There were none of interest?
I appreciate your response, I know its a bunch of questions but they are pretty simple to answer. I have a couple follow-up questions but they seem too dumb to ask without knowing the specifics mentioned above.
The folks here that are not interested in these details, sorry. But the gist of BrainScience/Hyperspace21's advice in this thread is to eat a balanced diet as a first resort and if you are still lacking calcium or glutamate then there are supplements than can fix that.
I'm still skeptical but that's me
Looking forward to your response Hyperspace21.
Thanks!!!
-fortfun
2) Out of the 11 responding volunteers; all of them experienced piracetam's other effects.
3) Mostly correct, however their dietary glutamate and calcium uptake were taken into consideration.
4) None of them had low calcium levels.
5) None of them had low calcium levels. Some had high calcium levels too.
6) The Dehydration and the Blood pressure tests were the 'cutoffs' that determined their sensitivity. They were secretly given via food and water.
7) Correct.
8) Correct (yes). There is a big difference between low calcium concentration levels and insufficient calcium concentration levels.
9) Correct. Average humans can withstand 1-2 grams of glutamate uptake. They were purposely given exactly 500mg of L-Glutamic acid to create a condition where too much glutamate was present in the brain. 500mg of L-GLutamic acid would not cause any physical/mental damage but it would make them exhibit signs of hyper-sensitivity.
10) Correct.
11) Yes we used Lumbar puncture to collect CSF. Lumbar puncture is the safest way of collecting CSF. (collecting CSF itself is a dangerous task) We did not collect the CSF's though; qualified doctor's and specialists did this task for us. The participants knew well in advance about CSF tests and collecting CSF required their consent. The ones who gave their consent became our volunteers.
12) MSG and Glutamic acid is metabolized differently by the body. We could try and do both these tests together in the same clinical trial but that would leave some holes in our research. Our aim was to find whether or not, different forms of glutamate would affect piracetam in any way.
Here is a review of a research that explains the differences between MSG,Glutamic acid and Glutamine along with their effects on the body:
http://www.hammernut...wnloads/msg.pdf
13) You skipped this question number.
14) In the first clinical trial their were 100 volunteers. In the second clinical trial their were 150 volunteers. In the second clinical trial, each individual was tested for there tolerance to MSG. The intolerable ones (volunteers who could not withstand MSG consumption below 10mg or showed symptoms of allergic reactions) were eliminated. After the elimination only 123 volunteers were left so they were divided in to groups based on their tolerance to MSG. (unequal groups)
As I have said before, people should posts results over-time (for at least 2-3weeks). To prevent placebo; people can use the subjective tests to test whether piracetam is actually working for them or not.
Feel free to ask any questions.
Edited by manic_racetam, 01 March 2012 - 05:20 AM.