A little methylphenidate could have livened things up a bit 
In the novel “Altered Carbon” (now a Netflix series), a “stack” (short for cortical stack) is a synthetic implant that houses your retrievable consciousness. With “nootropic” sounding like a sci-fi term, I just can’t get away from the idea that a nootropic stack is something you insert in your spine.
Nootropic sounds like topics related to noot ropes. I’m not sure if that is ropes made from noot or ropes for capturing/controlling/containing noots.
Either way, I’d never heard the word before this thread.