How could I measure the nootropic benefits testosterone injections may have?

post by shapeshifter · 2023-05-18T21:40:53.704Z · LW · GW · 2 comments

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    4 niplav
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I came across a post written by Gwern in which he says he never injected Testosterone before but is curious to know more about its potential nootropic benefits. I'm suspecting that its more people than just him who are curious about that soo why not experiment myself?

I wanted to "hop on another cycle of gear" (use steroids for 16-20  wks and restore my natural hormonal production right after) anyway but don't know anything about experiment design so if someone wants to help me out with that that would be pretty cool.

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answer by niplav · 2023-05-19T00:01:01.654Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

In a current caffeine self-experiment I'm tracking the following variables:

  • Meditation performance using Meditavo (unfortunately only exportable using the premium version)
    • Mindfulness
    • Concentration
  • Cognition using Anki flashcards scores, exported from the Collection.anki2 by using sqlite3
  • Mood via Moodpatterns
    • Happiness, Contentment and Stress
    • I use the additional interested/disinterested spectrum for tracking horniness
  • Creativity and productivity for the day via a simple self-written script that activates via scron

More here. Maybe you could try to self-blind yourself, e.g. have half of your injections be saline and the other half testosterone? (I don't know much about how testosterone is consumed, maybe the benefits accrue slowly enough that randomization doesn't make sense).

Happy to respond to more questions as well, but I haven't finished my experiment yet so I can't provide any code for analysis.

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comment by awg · 2023-05-18T22:28:27.523Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'd refrain from using street slang when referencing the chemical you're studying. Just call it testosterone. Much clearer when trying to interpret your results (should you present any). Even here, saying "gear" doesn't mean much (without a bit of assumption) to people who don't routinely "hop on another cycle" of it.

Replies from: shapeshifter
↑ comment by shapeshifter · 2023-05-19T07:30:27.865Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

You're right, I fixed it.