A synthetic compound built to move choline into nerve cells, the step limiting the brain's main memory chemical. Evidence for how it acts comes only from the owning company's laboratory, and only in already-damaged tissue. The one human study failed and was never published. Headache and disturbed sleep are commonly reported. Inexpensive and easy to obtain; unresolved, not disproven. (Full Review)

Protocol

Community standard dose

5–35 mg daily

Braintropic's range; Nootropics Expert gives 20–80 mg. Practice conventions, not validated doses. Rodent-scaled dose is roughly 3–33 mg.

Best time of day

Morning, before 14:00

Effects outlast plasma clearance; later dosing is the explanation given for delayed sleep onset. Community convention is one morning dose.

Pairing with a choline source

150–300 mg alpha-GPC

Or 250 mg citicoline alongside; the compound enhances choline transport, not supply. Oral dosing is with a fat-containing meal.

Time to effect

Mood and anxiety symptoms

6 weeks

Dosing period of the only human trial, which missed both endpoints. No demonstrated benefit.

Focus, motivation and recall

Within weeks

Anecdotal. Durable cognitive change would need the 4–8 week timescale of the animal repeat-dosing work.

Color, contrast and sound perception

30–60 minutes

Anecdotal, consistent with the rapid blood peak. No controlled study has measured vision or hearing.

Benefits

Low: Mood and anxiety symptoms in treatment-resistant depression

Speculative: Subjective focus, motivation and recall; reversal of chemically induced cholinergic memory deficits; reversal of drug-induced cognitive deficits and cholinergic cell loss; protection of neurons against glutamate overexcitation; relief of stress-induced visceral pain; sharper color, contrast and sound perception

Contraindications

Pregnancy or lactation

History of seizures of any type

Age outside the only studied range of 21–60 years

Hypersensitivity to cholinesterase inhibitors or cholinergic agonists

Baseline cytopenias (low blood cell counts)

Symptomatic bradycardia (below 50 beats per minute) or second- or third-degree heart block

Active peptic ulcer disease; mechanical urinary or intestinal obstruction

Asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with active bronchospasm

Key Interactions

Cholinesterase inhibitors (donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine, huperzine A)

Anticholinergics (oxybutynin, amitriptyline, diphenhydramine, scopolamine)

Cholinergic agonists (bethanechol, pilocarpine)

Seizure-threshold-lowering agents (bupropion, tramadol, high-dose theophylline)

Anticholinergic sleep and allergy aids (doxylamine, dimenhydrinate)

Over-the-counter caffeine

Choline donors (alpha-GPC, citicoline, choline bitartrate)

Other racetams (piracetam, aniracetam, oxiracetam) and nicotine

Alcohol

Risk & Side Effects

Low: Mislabeled or adulterated product; headache, fatigue and cholinergic overstimulation; sleep disruption, irritability and mood worsening

Speculative: Accelerated colonic transit and loose stools; transient rise in blood glucose; unstudied visual and perceptual change; unstudied effect on blood cell counts

Monitoring

Marker	Target	Why
Complete blood count with differential	Hemoglobin 13.5–15.0 g/dL (men), 12.5–14.5 (women); neutrophils 1.8–7.0 ×10⁹/L; platelets 200–400 ×10⁹/L	The only human trial screened out low counts and barred marrow-suppressing drugs
ALT	10–26 U/L (men), 8–22 U/L (women)	Unregulated powders carry unknown impurities; the liver shows such exposure first
Resting heart rate	55–70 beats per minute	Cholinergic activity slows the heart; a downward drift signals overshoot
Fasting glucose	75–86 mg/dL	Rodent work showed a small central cholinergic rise in plasma glucose
Homocysteine	5–7 µmol/L	Choline is consumed as a methyl donor; co-supplementation shifts this pathway
Plasma free choline	No established target; track change from own baseline	Choline supply is the limiting input to any effect
Chosen symptom or cognitive scale score	No established target; track change from own baseline, a 20% shift meaningful	Converts a subjective impression into a comparable number

Cadence: Baseline before the first dose; resting heart rate weekly for four weeks, then monthly; blood panel at 12 weeks, then every 6–12 months while use continues; symptom or cognitive scale at 2 and 8 weeks, then quarterly.

Qualitative Assessment

Sleep onset latency and dream vividness, logged nightly for two weeks
Sustained attention on a demanding task, and how readily distraction breaks it
Word-finding and name recall in conversation
Mood floor and irritability, noted at the same time each day
Visual brightness and contrast, and any change beyond that
Headache frequency and its response to added choline
Bowel frequency and stool consistency

Coluracetam for Health & Longevity

Protocol

Benefits

Risk & Side Effects

Monitoring

Qualitative Assessment