Are there any nootropics that have strong evidence behind them for better cognitive functioning? For example, nicotine, which works on the cholinergic system, has been shown to improve attention, has it not?
I wouldn’t agree that nicotine shows consistently reliable cognitive performance improvements, no.
I don’t think there are any nootropics that have a strong evidence base right now, save for caffeine and some prescription medications in specific patient populations.
Do you think part of the reason we don’t have strong evidence for most “nootropics” is due to a lack of studies?
Eh, maybe. I think the bigger issues are that the existing studies either don’t assess meaningful outcomes, e.g. performances in real-world situations (tests, exercise performance, etc.) and/or are very small. That said, there are a number of studies investigating various outcomes for various nootropic agents and for the most part, they aren’t particularly impressive. Nicotine has a substantial amount of research on it however, and I feel more confident saying the current evidence does not support an ergogenic benefit from a cognitive performance standpoint.
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L-theanine has some evidence in combination with caffeine but not really super strong.
Would be worth a try tho