Piracetam was one derided as a “drug in search of a disease” because it worked in many cases, but not necessarily in one specific case amazingly well. This has to do with the mechanisms of action by which piracetam and nootropics work. Because they do not target a specific receptor, but target “higher-level, integrative activity in the brain” they do not fit the standard medical model. That said, however, piracetam found use in a myriad of use cases preventing damage from hypoxia in premature babies to serving as a memory restoring agent in geriatric patients.