Optimizing Neurotransmitters for Cognitive Health and Performance
Ryan Munsey (USA)
Chief Optimizer @ Natural Stacks, Performance Optimization Specialist, Host @ Optimal Performance Podcast
Ryan Munsey is the Renaissance man of the biohacking space. Ryan has a degree in Food Science and Human Nutrition from Clemson University and has worn the titles of fitness model, strength coach, gym owner, author and now works with Natural Stacks as the Chief Optimizer where he hosts the Optimal Performance Podcast and specializes in helping people around the world optimize their lifestyle, mindset, productivity, and brain performance.
This talk explores how optimizing neurotransmitters can unlock human potential and enhance
Learn the rules, learn the science, and then you can learn how to manipulate it, to bend it to your will, to get the outcome that you want. And isn't that what biohacking really is?
Summary
- Ninety-five percent of human decisions are driven by feelings rather than logic; neurological research shows that an inability to process emotions can lead to total decision-making paralysis. - Physiology dictates neurotransmitter states, meaning physical actions like movement, music, and smiling can instantly shift biological profiles to improve mood and cognitive output. - Cognitive performance relies on four key neurotransmitters: dopamine for motivation, serotonin for mood regulation, GABA for relaxation, and acetylcholine for mental processing speed. - Approximately 95% of serotonin is produced in the gut, highlighting that dietary choices and microbiome health are critical factors in managing anxiety, mood, and mental clarity. - Effective cognitive optimization requires objective baseline testing, such as EEG or neurotransmitter tests, to identify specific needs and avoid counterproductive interventions.
Article
Optimizing Neurotransmitters For Cognitive Health And Performance
At Biohacker Summit 2017 Stockholm, Ryan Munsey Argued That Better Thinking Began Not With Willpower, But With Biology
On 19 May 2017, at Biohacker Summit 2017 Stockholm in Sweden, Ryan Munsey stepped onto the stage with a proposition that felt at once unsettling and liberating. Most people, he said, liked to imagine themselves as rational actors, carefully weighing evidence and making clean, logical choices. The science suggested otherwise.
“Ninety-five percent of the decisions you make are not based in logic or rational thought. They are based on your feelings,” Munsey told the audience.
It was a striking opening to his presentation, *Optimizing Neurotransmitters for Cognitive Health and Performance*, and it framed the rest of his talk with unusual clarity. If feeling, mood and physiology governed so much of human behaviour, then cognitive performance was not simply a matter of trying harder. It was a matter of understanding the chemistry that shaped attention, motivation, calm and resilience, then learning how to influence it wisely.
Munsey, an American performance optimization specialist, Chief Optimizer at Natural Stacks, and host of the *Optimal Performance Podcast*, did not present the brain as a machine to be bullied into productivity. He presented it as a living system, ancient and responsive, built as much by movement, food and environment as by thought itself.
Feelings, Not Logic, Sat Near The Center Of Human Decision-Making
Munsey drew on the work of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio to make an argument that challenged a comforting myth. Emotion was not a flaw in human cognition. It was central to it.
People with damage to the brain regions involved in feeling, he explained, did not become hyper-rational calculators. They became paralysed, unable to make even simple decisions. The implication was profound. Emotion was not the enemy of reason. It was one of its conditions.
That insight gave urgency to a broader question. If feelings directed so much of human choice, then what directed feelings?
Munsey’s answer was physiological. Neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers that allow neurons to communicate across synapses, governed mood, movement, motivation, anxiety and mental speed. They shaped not just how people felt, but what they were capable of doing with those feelings.
The Fastest Route To A Better State Was Often Through The Body
One of the more memorable parts of the presentation came when Munsey had the crowd stand and play a brisk, music-backed round of Simon Says. It was playful, but not incidental. The exercise was his demonstration that physiology could be changed in real time, and that such changes altered mental state.
Movement, music, pattern recognition and smiling were not framed as self-help clichés. Munsey treated them as biological levers.
Music, he argued, could activate brain regions tied to emotion and memory while helping shift mood. Movement could act within minutes, changing hormonal and neurotransmitter profiles and producing effects comparable, in some cases, to antidepressant interventions. Smiling, he reminded the audience, had measurable physiological value.
“Smiling releases feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. It relaxes your body, lowers your heart rate, and can act as a natural pain reliever.”
The larger point was simple and persuasive. Cognitive performance did not begin with abstract intention. It often began with embodied action. A walk, a song, a posture, a laugh. These were not trivialities. They were inputs.
The Four Neurotransmitters That Mattered Most
Munsey organised much of his talk around four neurotransmitters he regarded as central to performance: dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine and GABA. Each played a distinct role, and each, he argued, could be supported or undermined by daily habits.
Dopamine As Drive
Dopamine, in Munsey’s telling, was less about pleasure than about pursuit. Newer research, he said, had shifted the understanding of dopamine away from a simple reward chemical and toward its role in motivation, initiative and perseverance.
Without enough dopamine, people were less likely to act, less likely to work for outcomes, less likely even to begin. Dopamine was the gas pedal of cognition, the force behind getting up, moving forward and sustaining effort when effort was required.
Serotonin And The Gut-Brain Axis
Serotonin was presented as the regulator of mood, anxiety and fear, but the most arresting part of this section was not psychological. It was gastrointestinal.
Munsey noted that roughly 90 to 95 per cent of serotonin was produced in the gut, not the brain. That fact alone carried major implications. Mental health could not be separated neatly from diet, digestion and the microbiome. What people ate, and what disrupted their gut health, could shape mood, cravings, clarity and emotional stability.
In that sense, the brain was not an isolated command centre. It was in constant conversation with the body.
Acetylcholine And Processing Speed
Acetylcholine, Munsey explained, was tied to mental processing speed, attention, learning, memory and even motor unit recruitment. It influenced not only how quickly the brain handled information, but also how effectively the body translated neural signals into action.
For some, that made acetylcholine support attractive as a tool for sharper focus or physical performance. But Munsey was careful to add nuance. More was not always better. Depending on a person’s baseline neurochemistry, boosting the wrong pathway could push them further from balance rather than closer to it.
GABA In An Age Of Information Overload
If dopamine was acceleration, GABA was braking power. It was the inhibitory neurotransmitter that helped calm the nervous system and counter overstimulation.
This mattered, Munsey suggested, because modern life had become chemically hostile to calm. Human beings were swimming in unprecedented quantities of information, much of it delivered through glowing devices and fragmented attention. The result could be excitotoxicity, a damaging overactivation linked to the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate.
In one of the strongest lines of the talk, Munsey shifted the conversation away from relentless optimisation and toward preservation.
“Sometimes cognitive enhancement is not about thinking faster and doing more. It is about protecting your brain for the long run and finding that balance point.”
It was a rare note of restraint in a field often seduced by speed.
Nature, Munsey Said, Was The First Biohacker
A recurring theme in the presentation was that many modern nootropics had ancient roots. Munsey looked backward as often as he looked forward, tracing cognitive enhancement not to Silicon Valley, but to survival.
“If survival was the original biohack, nature was the first guru. Everything we learned came from nature.”
He spoke of human brain evolution through nutrient-dense foods such as bone marrow and DHA-rich fish, and linked this long arc of adaptation to what he called superior pattern processing, one of the defining features of human intelligence.
He also pointed to older botanical and culinary traditions. Lion’s mane mushroom, bacopa and artichoke-derived compounds all featured in his account of how ancient practices were now receiving modern scientific attention. Lion’s mane, he said, had been associated in research with major increases in nerve growth factor and nerve cell proliferation. Artichoke, rich in luteolin, was described as a PDE4 inhibitor that could increase cyclic AMP and support long-term memory.
These examples were not offered as magic bullets. Munsey repeatedly stressed that compounds should support the system, not replace the work required to build capacity.
“You can take all the protein and creatine in the world, but until you actually go into the gym and lift the weights, you are not going to get any adaptation. We have to do the work.”
That line, though framed through physical training, stood as the ethic of the talk. Supplementation might help. It could not substitute for behaviour.
The Most Important Biohack Was Baseline Awareness
Perhaps the most sober part of Munsey’s presentation came near the end, when he warned against treating nootropics as universal solutions. He rejected the fantasy of one perfect stack for every brain.
Instead, he urged objective measurement. EEG readings, brainwave analysis and tools such as Braverman-style neurotransmitter profiling could help identify what a person actually needed. Without a baseline, experimentation risked becoming little more than guesswork.
Munsey used his own example. Testing had shown that his alpha brainwaves were unusually high. A nootropic that lowered them improved his focus. A different compound, often celebrated for boosting attention, might have made him worse. The lesson was plain: personal neurochemistry mattered.
This insistence on quantification grounded the presentation. It prevented the discussion from slipping into mysticism or hype. Biohacking, in Munsey’s view, was not about swallowing trends. It was about understanding individual biology and responding with precision.
The Search Was Not For Limitless Output, But For Balance
What lingered after Munsey’s talk at Biohacker Summit 2017 Stockholm was not a list of supplements, though there were many references to compounds, pathways and mechanisms. It was a more humane proposition.
The brain did not need endless forcing. It needed calibration.
The route to better performance, Munsey suggested, ran through some deceptively ordinary things: sleep, movement, music, gut health, boundaries with technology, time in nature, and the discipline to test rather than assume. The body could be nudged. Mood could be shifted. Neurotransmitters could be supported. But the goal was not to become superhuman by sheer chemical enthusiasm.
It was to become more capable, more stable, and perhaps more aware of how deeply thought itself depended on forces below the level of consciousness.
In a culture that often worshipped productivity while neglecting the biology that sustained it, Munsey’s message felt less like a manifesto for enhancement than a plea for intelligence about the self. Not every brain needed more stimulation. Not every problem needed a pill. Sometimes the most radical act was simply to recognise that feeling, food, motion and rest had been shaping the mind all along.
Part of Biohacker Summit 2017 Stockholm