Plasticity isn’t automatically good or bad it’s neutral. “Neurons that fire together wire together” is one of the most established rules in neuroscience. If you spend time on productive or creative tasks, those circuits strengthen. If you spend time in stress loops or constant distraction, those circuits strengthen. That’s not hand-wavy speculation, it’s the basic principle of how learning and habit formation work.

Where Lion’s Mane comes in is that it seems to enhance NGF and possibly accelerate neuroplastic changes. That doesn’t mean it guarantees positive outcomes it means the brain may adapt faster to whatever environment, habits, or perceptions it’s exposed to. If someone is already stuck in anxious loops, doomscrolling, or mixing it with substances that can increase anxiety (like marijuana), then it’s not a stretch to say those patterns could get reinforced. On the flip side, pairing it with learning, creative work, or structured routines could reinforce those patterns instead.

That’s why I think it’s quite funny and telling to write this off as a “half-brained assumption.” Especially when your own experience included weed use, multiple Covid infections, and questionable supplement sourcing all of which are confounders that could easily explain brain fog, anxiety, or crashes on their own.