Inside America’s Obsession With Paying to Get Smarter

At this point, you’ve probably at least thought about dropping a few scoops of creatine into your morning smoothie. An amino acid compound that promotes energy production in brain and muscle cells, it’s been a gym staple for building muscle for decades. In recent years, researchers have started to unpack creatine’s potential cognition-boosting benefits, including promising early studies for sleep-deprived people and Alzheimer’s patients.

At the Vitamin Shoppe, sales of creatine are up 320% since 2019, the company said in its 2025 trend report. Searches for “creatine gummies” spiked 1,300% last year, while the powder remains a “mainstay.”

If supplements aren’t your thing, but gaining a neuro edge is, you might have considered a brain-training headset, which promises to combat brain aging and cognitive decline, as well as improve sleep. Or a game that promises help with the symptoms of adult ADHD.

Consumer products that promise sharper thinking, calmer moods, and a cognitive edge are suddenly everywhere.

People want to find that one magic thing: one magic game or app or something that makes you better at a whole suite of things in a super short time

Meta and Apple are developing, patenting, or acquiring devices we could soon wear around our wrists, on the collars of our shirts, or inside our nostrils to improve our mood — and maybe even “boost” intelligence by providing a kind of IQ-enhancing adrenaline boost for the brain. Much of the new brain tech is being driven by AI, which enables more real-time feedback.

Brain hacking is also becoming a high-end perk at some workplaces.

In 2014, there were just 41 consumer neurotech companies, according to a recent report from the Centre for Future Generations. By 2024, that number had soared to 153, outpacing medical device manufacturing for the brain.

And who wouldn’t want a little brain enhancement?

A rapidly aging population that’s increasingly extending working lives well into the golden years, longevity-focused biohackers, and women looking for treatments for menopause-related brain fog all add up to a potentially massive consumer base.

“People want to find that one magic thing: one magic game or app or something that makes you better at a whole suite of things in a super short time,” UCSD cognitive neuroscientist Bradley Voytek, who studies how brain communication changes as we age, told Business Insider.

It all sounds great, right? But what does science have to say about any of this?

The trouble with optimizing our brains is that no two brains work the same way. The question worth asking is not so much what the human brain needs, but rather what your brain needs.

Depending on the answer, you might be better off pursuing something that’s tailored to your specific needs or goals, rather than a mass-marketed brain booster.

Take creatine. An emerging body of research focused on older adults suggests that it can improve sleep and potentially help stave off cognitive decline. Large, well-controlled studies are scarce, especially for younger, generally healthy individuals. That’s not to say that creatine is bad; it’s just that it may help you build muscle but not meaningfully improve cognition.

“If you’re not getting in nature and walking and interacting with other people, you are missing core ingredients of keeping a healthy brain. No amount of hacks are going to help.”

Doctors generally suggest blood testing for nutritional deficiencies before you start taking supplements. That same advice holds for fancy, brain-boosting tech.

Similarly, a lot of neuro-edge devices might offer some benefit. They may not address your precise concerns or your very specific, long-term cognitive vulnerabilities.

“The way you improve cognition is to work around the areas of weakness,” says neuroscientist Dean Sherzai, the executive director of clinical research at Charles R. Drew University and best-selling author of “The Alzheimer’s Solution.” “You build it back up.”

There are some things, of course, that are good for everyone. Quality sleep. Regular, moderate-to-intense exercise. A healthy, nutrient-rich diet. Meaningful social interaction. Virtually every neuroscientist agrees on this foundational, grandma-approved advice.

There is also promising research around the power of brain games.

BrainHQ, which sells a mind-training program, released a study in partnership with McGill University in Canada that found that adults aged 65 and up, who did the exercises for 30 minutes a day for 10 weeks, experienced a roughly 2% increase in their acetylcholine levels — a key brain chemical that aids in movement, memory, and learning.

Brain-body training can also offer clear benefits for various aspects of cognition, including visual perception, balance, coordination, focus, relaxation, and working memory.

That can be great for anyone hoping to promote a performance edge, whether they’re a professional athlete or a stock trader.

Some companies are taking note, and offering such training as a high-end perk.

Last year, JLL, the commercial real estate giant, set up a “brain gym” in its Singapore office that was outfitted with the same kind of gear that high-performance athletes use to train their brains, like lighted pods and vision training boards.

“Wouldn’t you want those people to be 1% more high performing or more focused or more productive?” said Ben Hamley, JLL’s global head of research and development. He said employees who participated saw improvements to their focus, including being better able to resist distractions.

For all the options, experts say that consumers are left to figure out what they, personally, need most and filter through what’s bogus versus what could be good for them — and do it all on their own.

None of the neuroscientists I interviewed for this story said they personally use brain games or pulsating devices regularly — at least, not yet.

Experts agree that one of the most important things you can do is to continuously challenge yourself in the real world. This might include discovering new places, engaging in deep conversations with other people, and picking up a new skill, such as a foreign language or a musical instrument.

“If you’re not getting in nature and walking and interacting with other people, you are missing core ingredients of keeping a healthy brain,” says Dr. Adam Gazzaley, founder and executive director of the University of California San Francisco’s Neuroscape center.

Gazzaley believes in the power of technology to help train our brains — he spent 15 years developing what became EndeavorOTC, the first video game approved by the FDA for the treatment of adult ADHD.

He also sees its limits. “No amount of hacks are going to help,” he said, if you haven’t built that healthy foundation. “Watching TV all day would be the opposite example of that, where you just passively, like a fire hose, have information flood into your brain as opposed to interactively pushing yourself and thinking and interpreting information that’s outside of your normal inputs,” he said.

For all the exciting promise of neurotech products, what we’ll most benefit from is the right device, the right technique, the right prescription, and all at the right time.

For now, we don’t quite understand how to exercise each person’s brain in the most effective way every day.

Voytek, the neuroscience professor, says when students come to him struggling with focus or are unable to complete assignments, he never suggests brain training.

“I would recommend sleep,” he said.