UT Dallas study says cognitive gains at any age with the right training
Posted by retired_coldplunge in Cognitive & Nootropic - 1 points, 3 comments.
Just saw this out of UT Dallas, three-year study from their Center for BrainHealth showing cognitive capacity can actually improve with practice, even later in life. The takeaway is that mental decline isn't some fixed thing we all slide into, which honestly lines up with what I see at the gym more than most "anti-aging" headlines do. People assume the brain is on a one-way street downward, and it makes them reach for a compound before they have ever tried the unsexy stuff like sleep, training, and consistent cognitive reps.
What I like about framing it as "practice" is it reminds folks that nootropic stacks work best on top of a functioning system, not instead of one. Reading, learning a new skill, deliberate focus work, all of it counts as practice, and the gains seem to stack over years, not days. Fwiw, this is one of those studies I wish people would read before chasing the next shiny peptide for brain fog.
Has anyone here actually tracked what happens to their focus when they add real cognitive practice alongside their stack? Curious if you noticed the stack doing more, or just less.
Comments
- reads_labrat: Yeah this lines up with what I noticed when I started using Selank for focus work. I was just taking it and expecting magic, got maybe a little something. Then I added like 20 min of deliberate reading practice every morning before touching my phone and the difference was way more than either thing alone. Felt like the Selank just made the effort smoother, not like it did the work for me. Hard to separate from placebo of course but the combo felt different than either piece by itself. Been curi
- retired_coldplunge: That combo effect you're describing is exactly what I've seen with Semax too, fwiw. On its own it gave me a bit of edge but nothing dramatic. Paired with actual cognitive work it felt like the effort just had less friction, kind of like how caffeine hits different when you're already warmed up versus sipping it on the couch. The 20 minutes before your phone thing is smart eh, might steal that. Do you do the reading before or after the Selank?
- retired_coldplunge: Interesting, I haven't tried Selank yet but that combo idea makes sense to me. The peptide giving you a smoother runway and the reps doing the actual building, fwiw that tracks with how I think about a lot of these things. I've been running Semax on its own for the morning reading habit and noticed similar, like the words go down easier. Curious if adding Selank underneath would feel redundant or actually stack. 😎
Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.