What Is Lion’s Mane Actually Doing in Your Brain?

Lion’s Mane has built a reputation as the brain mushroom, and you’ll often hear that it supports focus, memory, or even “grows new brain cells.” That last claim makes a great headline, but the science is more complicated.

Lion’s Mane, or Hericium erinaceus, contains several compounds that researchers are studying for how they interact with the nervous system. Two groups come up often: hericenones and erinacines.

So what are they actually doing?

The Role of Nerve Growth Factor

A lot of the interest in Lion’s Mane starts with something called Nerve Growth Factor (NGF)

NGF is a protein that helps certain nerve cells survive, grow, and maintain their connections. Laboratory research has found that Lion’s Mane extracts can increase NGF activity in cells, which is one reason scientists became interested in the mushroom.

But this is where the wording matters.

Finding an effect on NGF in a lab does not mean Lion’s Mane “grows new brain cells” when someone eats it. Much of this research has been done in cells and animals, which helps scientists understand possible mechanisms but cannot tell us exactly what will happen in a human brain.

What About the Connections Between Brain Cells?

Researchers at the University of Queensland studied compounds isolated from Lion’s Mane and found that some of them promoted the growth and branching of neurites in cultured hippocampal neurons. That makes NGF only a part of the picture.

Neurites are extensions that allow nerve cells to develop connections and communicate. The hippocampus, the brain area used in this research, plays an important role in learning and memory.

The same research also found changes in brain-growth signaling and memory performance in mice.

Interesting? Definitely, but it is not proof that Lion’s Mane improves human memory. At least not yet.

The Human Side of the Research

Human research is still relatively small, and the results are mixed.

A study from Northumbria University followed 41 healthy adults. After a single dose of Lion’s Mane, participants completed one cognitive task faster than the placebo group. After 28 days, researchers also saw a possible reduction in self-reported stress, but many other measures showed no clear differences.

Another controlled study published in 2025 involving researchers from the University of Surrey, published in Frontiers in Nutrition, found no significant overall improvement in cognition or mood compared with placebo in 18 healthy younger adults. Participants did perform better on one motor task, suggesting that any effects may be more specific than broad claims about “better brain function” suggest.

In older research in 2009, Koichiro Mori and colleagues also reported improved scores on a cognitive test during Lion’s Mane use in 30 adults with mild cognitive impairment. Those scores dropped again after the study ended.

Small studies like these are useful signals, but they aren’t enough to answer the question: “What happens in people?”

So, What Is Lion’s Mane Actually Doing?

The most accurate answer right now is that scientists are still working that out.

Lion’s Mane contains compounds that appear to interact with pathways involved in nerve-cell growth and communication. Cell and animal research has given scientists several interesting leads, and small human studies have produced a few promising results.

But “promising” is not the same as proven.

For now, Lion’s Mane is less of a confirmed “brain booster” and more of an interesting mushroom giving researchers plenty of reasons to keep looking.

Join the conversation: what would you like researchers to explore next?

References

Mori, K., Obara, Y., Hirota, M., Azumi, Y., Kinugasa, S., Inatomi, S., & Nakahata, N. (2008). Nerve growth factor-inducing activity of Hericium erinaceus in 1321N1 human astrocytoma cells. Biological & pharmaceutical bulletin, 31(9), 1727–1732. https://doi.org/10.1248/bpb.31.1727

Martínez-Mármol, R., Chai, Y., Conroy, J. N., Khan, Z., Hong, S.-M., Kim, S. B., Gormal, R. S., Lee, D. H., Lee, J. K., Coulson, E. J., Lee, M. K., Kim, S. Y., & Meunier, F. A. (2023). Hericerin derivatives activates a pan-neurotrophic pathway in central hippocampal neurons converging to ERK1/2 signaling enhancing spatial memory. Journal of Neurochemistry, 165, 791–808. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnc.15767

Docherty, S., Doughty, F. L., & Smith, E. F. (2023). The Acute and Chronic Effects of Lion’s Mane Mushroom Supplementation on Cognitive Function, Stress and Mood in Young Adults: A Double-Blind, Parallel Groups, Pilot Study. Nutrients, 15(22), 4842. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15224842

Surendran, G., Saye, J., Binti Mohd Jalil, S., Spreadborough, J., Duong, K., Shatwan, I. M., Lilley, D., Heinrich, M., Dodd, G. F., & Surendran, S. (2025). Acute effects of a standardised extract of Hericium erinaceus (Lion’s Mane mushroom) on cognition and mood in healthy younger adults: a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled study. Frontiers in nutrition, 12, 1405796. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2025.1405796

Mori, K., Inatomi, S., Ouchi, K., Azumi, Y., & Tuchida, T. (2009). Improving effects of the mushroom Yamabushitake (Hericium erinaceus) on mild cognitive impairment: a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial. Phytotherapy research : PTR, 23(3), 367–372. https://doi.org/10.1002/ptr.2634