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Comment by SailingSperm | Hacker News Reader

Hericium erinaceus (Lion's mane mushroom) has isolates called Hericenones and Erinacine that promote nerve growth factor synthesis and a lot of other Neurohealth benifits being found to do with the compounds the fungi produces.

The influence of Hericium erinaceus extract on myelination process in vitro https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12675022/

Neurohealth Properties of Hericium erinaceus Mycelia Enriched with Erinacines https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987239/

Protip: If/When buying supplements -- There's many that are just selling capsules of ground myceliated brf (brown rice flour - the substrate inoculated/grown on). Mycelium is the 'roots/pre fruiting stage' of the fungi -- The fruit body/ mushroom itself has much greater concentrations of the desired compounds.

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Was about to write this.

Here's also an easy summary of it's effect and recommendation If one consider buying supplements:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MushroomSupplements/comments/h090ry...

Bought some myself and tried to track its effect by playing 3DS Devilish Brain Training game and track performance.

Did you notice an improvement?

Nothing definitive. After 1 week I managed to achieve life-time high score in focus and short-term memory task (my previous high-score was from Uni while studying Physics), but I'm susceptible to placebo so I can't rule out that effect.

I feel like I have less "brain-fog" or rather, brain-fog induced procrastination though. But taking this coincided with a less-stressful time of my life so It might be related to both.

I tried taking this for a while, but found that I started having really bad headaches. I was taking a well known brand from Amazon. I couldn't be 100% sure the headaches were due to the Lion's mane, but felt better after I stopped taking it.

I was pretty bummed, I was hoping for a little boost from this as I had read good things about it, including the NIH articles you posted.

I can also confirm, finding the supplements that are not just mostly the ground brown rice flour is also a little difficult.

I have small fiber neuropathy, with de-mylinated peripheral nerves. I tried lion's mane (amongst many other things), but it didn't help.

I'd made sure t get one that was comprised only of the fruiting bodies, with a tested percentage of polysaccharides.

How do you know if you're getting the actual mushroom vs. the substrate?

If only there was some body of regulation that could help sort this stuff out without influence from industry. (not sarcasm)

Agreed, but that regulation should be on purity and label accuracy, and not venture into "sorry, we don't approve of this -- you can't have it".

Learn to cook lions main. It’s very distinct.

The ingredients list / packaging should say something like dried fruiting body... or if you're getting the rubbish = myceliated grain or mycelial biomass. The reddit link provided by NalNezumi is very good.

Here's just another link of some lighter details. https://learn.freshcap.com/tips/myceliated-grain/

Are there any concerns about the active NGF compounds being 5a-reductase inhibitors?

They say similar things about psilocybin and magic mushrooms, but some people still eat the mycelium to get the effects. I guess it's more economical to just grow mycelium.

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