See a discussion of microbial nootropics at <http://gnusha.org/logs/2015-06-22.log> for more details.

or page 15 of the following slides <http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/2017-02-03-beacon.pdf#page=15>

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# Directed evolution of microbes to engineer a nootropic

brain parasites (or perhaps intracellular parasites)

plasmids with BDNF and other neural growth factors

lots of mutagenesis

Selection methods and targets:

* Maze solving: infect mice, run mice through mazes, evaluate maze solving performance, recover bacteria from the brains of mice that perform well.

* Hippocampus size: infect mice, wait some time, evaluate hippocampus size, recover bacteria from mice that have larger-than-average hippocampus

* Sleep: infect mice, observe sleep behavior and patterns, select for microbes that decrease total mouse sleep requirements or decrease the negative effects of sleep deprivation