This is the biohacking segment and this is part one of three or at least present. There's three sections they'll likely be more in the future. And what we're talking about are nootropics or smart drugs, also known as cognitive enhancers. The benefit of cognitive enhancement is that increases in executive function, anything that requires thought higher higher order thinking, memory, creativity, and motivation. nootropics have the power to increase and stimulate all these areas of the brain. It is over a billion dollar market in the US alone as of 2015 and is exponentially growing.

We're talking about first the first of several substances is Yama, Boucher tacky. That is a Japanese word whenever you see she Takei it basically means mushroom and so Emma Boucher tackk better known as lion's mane, that's typically how I refer to it to my coaching clients, students and patients. It's also known by a variety of other names, and you're likely going to see some of these depending on what type of supplement or nootropic or nootropic stack that is. You are considering it's derived from dead or decaying broadleaf trees. And basically, here's how it works. I'm not going to get into the in depth, bio neurologic phenomenon processes, but just suffice it to say that it stimulates something called nerve growth factor.

And the cool thing about this is that it amps up a process called neurogenesis. This is basically the birth and growth of nerve cells, nerve tissue. Neurons are the essential communicating cell structure inside the brain. And the more you have the longer they're their length in their branches, the better off executive function memory, recall and performance will be nootropics, particularly the lion's mane have been shown to increase the number of neurons inside the hippocampus. This is a structure deep inside the brain that's responsible for memory and improves cognition, decreases inflammation has maybe some slight little blood blood pressure lowering effects and also can improve lipids particularly triglycerides, and also has some other effects including immune modulation. But I don't think you're particularly interested in that.

You can read more about that on the blog. There's some cool scientific data that really validate how Lion's Mane works and support. It's used not only in animal studies, but also in human studies. The rat in the mouse studies were sort of the Genesis, obviously, there's not a ton of research dollars or pharmaceutical dollars for young healthy subjects to be studied. And so that's sort of how animal studies often are the segue into these type of research experiments. What they found is that mice and rats had in increased performance in a variety of cognitive functions, particularly maze running and things like that.

They also did a study where they damaged one of the nerves of the, I believe of rats lower extremity, and by supplementing with lion's mane, actually were able to improve the ability of this rat to walk in a normal fashion. So as you recall from the previous slide, the nerve growth factor or neurogenesis plays a huge role in Lion's Mane works. It's also been studied in Alzheimer's disease, which is a neurodegenerative disease. And also it showed these people had a significant improvement on their cognitive function scale. There's more about that on the blog if you care to learn a little bit more in depth about that, that data in those studies. So what's the proper dosing?

Based on the literature the range is pretty broad anywhere from 150 milligrams up to 1000 milligrams per day, is generally what the literature supports. There certainly are some data about higher doses than that. The benefit is that there's also some decrease in anxiety improved in depression, and lessening of irritability by supplementing with lion's mane. Fortunately, there hasn't been any real serious side effects reported. On rare occasions, some people might report skin itching, and this is believed to be caused by the nerve growth factor stimulation. Obviously, common sense should prevail.

This isn't a medical lecture. This is not medical advice. This is purely for education and learning processes. And so if you're somebody who's got some health concerns, take some prescription medications or have some other concerns obviously consult your own personal physician. Next up in the biohacking section we'll be talking about alpha GPC