The Benefits of Lion’s Mane Mushroom

July 22, 2026 Bec Guild

Have You Heard About Lion's Mane?

The secret is out about the variety of health benefits that medicinal mushrooms offer.

Nowadays, you can walk into almost any health store or pharmacy, and you'll find shelves lined with tablets and tonics with various species of mushrooms in them, each promising a variety of benefits from sharper thinking, better memory, or improved immunity, gut and stress. This is owing to the beautiful complex of compounds within mushrooms that yield an ever-growing list of health and wellbeing benefits.

Lion’s Mane mushroom has surged in popularity due to demonstrating impressive cognitive benefits. Consequently, there’s now a flood of supplements available on the market. But here's what many consumers don't realise: not all Lion's Mane preparations contain the compounds most closely associated with its brain and nerve benefits.

The difference isn't simply the mushroom itself, it's which part of the mushroom is used, how it's extracted, and whether those delicate brain-active compounds survive the manufacturing process.

If you're taking Lion's Mane specifically for your brain, understanding these differences could make all the difference.

Why Has Lion’s Mane Got Everyone’s Attention?

Lion's Mane (Hericium erinaceus) has been used throughout Asia for centuries as both a culinary mushroom and traditional medicinal food.

Unlike many medicinal mushrooms that are predominantly researched for immune support, Lion's Mane has caught the attention of researchers the world over, because it contains unique compounds capable of influencing the nervous system. With up to one in every three people living with a chronic neurological condition, there’s a lot of interest in safe, medicinal compounds that might mitigate some of these chronic health burdens plaguing society.

How Lion's Mane Supports Cognition

Rather than acting like a stimulant, Lion's Mane appears to work by supporting the brain's own ability to maintain, repair and communicate between neurons.

This is one reason researchers are now investigating its potential role in healthy ageing, memory, mood, nerve regeneration and cognitive performance.

Current research suggests Lion's Mane works through several complementary mechanisms.

1. Promotes Nerve Growth Factor (NGF)

Perhaps Lion's Mane's most unique feature is its ability to promote the production of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF).

NGF is a naturally occurring protein that acts like a fertiliser for your neurons.

It helps brain cells:

survive
communicate efficiently
repair themselves
form new neural connections
and maintain healthy myelin around nerves

Although NGF naturally declines with age, several compounds found within Lion's Mane, including hericenones from the fruiting body (the flesh of the mushroom itself) and erinacines from within the mycelium (a substrate that Lion’s Mane can be grown on, like wood pulp) have demonstrated NGF-stimulating activity in laboratory and animal studies.

This neuroplasticity-potentiating effect is believed to underpin many of Lion's Mane's cognitive benefits.

2. Facilitates Memory and Cognitive Function

The strongest clinical evidence for Lion's Mane comes from studies involving older adults experiencing mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition characterised by noticeable changes in memory or thinking that are greater than expected with normal ageing, but not severe enough to interfere with daily life.

In a landmark double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, Mori et al. (2009) found that adults with mild cognitive impairment who consumed 1,000 mg of Lion's Mane three times daily for 16 weeks experienced significant improvements in cognitive function compared with those receiving a placebo. Interestingly, these improvements gradually declined after supplementation ceased, suggesting that continued intake may be necessary to maintain the benefits.

Overall, the evidence suggests that Lion's Mane works best when taken consistently over time, with most clinical studies reporting measurable improvements after 8 - 16 weeks of daily supplementation. These longer-term benefits are thought to reflect Lion's Mane's ability to support neuroplasticity and nerve growth, rather than acting as a stimulant that provides an immediate boost.

More recently, researchers have begun investigating whether Lion's Mane may also produce acute cognitive effects. In a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study published in 2023, healthy young adults who consumed a single 1.8 g dose of Lion's Mane extract completed the Stroop task (a well-established test of attention and executive function) significantly faster just 60 minutes after supplementation compared with the placebo group. Participants who supplemented daily for 28 days also reported reduced subjective stress compared with placebo. While these findings are promising, larger studies are needed to confirm whether these rapid cognitive effects are consistently observed.

Together, the current evidence suggests Lion's Mane may support both long-term cognitive health through ongoing supplementation and, in some individuals, short-term aspects of cognitive performance such as attention and processing speed.

3. Augment Neuroplasticity

Every new skill, memory and experience we have depends on neuroplasticity and by extension, your brain's ability to reorganise itself. NGF helps strengthen these neural networks.

By supporting NGF production, Lion's Mane may help maintain our brain's capacity to adapt and remain agile throughout our lifespan.

4. May Support Mood and Emotional Wellbeing

Our brain and nervous system, and our emotional wellbeing are intricately connected.

Several human studies have observed improvements in measures of anxiety, stress resilience and anxiousness or depressive symptoms following Lion's Mane supplementation.

Researchers believe this may result from several interacting mechanisms:

improved neuroplasticity
reduced neuroinflammation
improved communication between neurons
possible effects on the gut-brain axis

While Lion's Mane shouldn't replace appropriate treatment for diagnosed mental health conditions, it may provide important nutritive benefits as part of a broader brain and nervous system wellbeing approach.

5. Helps Calm Neuroinflammation

Healthy inflammation can be protective and drive the resilience of our nervous system. Conversely, chronic neuroinflammation achieves the opposite. It’s destructive and damaging to important tissues we want to protect to maintain better brain longevity.

Preclinical research consistently shows Lion's Mane reduces inflammatory signalling pathways while increasing antioxidant defences.

These mechanisms are increasingly recognised as important contributors to long-term cognitive resilience and healthy brain ageing.

Choosing the Best Lion’s Mane Supplement

Here's where being judicious about selecting the right Lion's Mane becomes important.

Many products proudly advertise their beta-glucan content, as a surrogate marker for standardisation and quality. And, understandably so, Beta-glucans are excellent compounds. They're well-researched for their immune health properties. But here’s the part most brands aren’t communicating; Beta glucans are not the compounds primarily associated with Lion's Mane's brain-specific effects.

The compounds most closely linked with NGF attributes are the hericenones and hericenes, found naturally within the fruiting body.

When it comes to optimising your Lion’s Mane extract for these compounds, it does present a few manufacturing challenges.

Hericenones and hericenes are:

fat soluble
Sensitive (ie. lost) to heat
poorly extracted using water alone

This means many standard mushroom powders and water extracts contain relatively little of these important compounds.

Why Dual Extraction Matters

The solvent, ie. the medium that your plant material is exposed to, will yield different compounds. This is because these constituents have different solubility into different solvent mediums. For example;

Water extraction captures:

✔ beta-glucans

✔ polysaccharides

✔ water-soluble antioxidants

Alcohol extraction captures:

✔ hericenones

✔ aromatic compounds

✔ lipid-soluble bioactives

By using a blend of both extraction methods, you can yield a much broader spectrum of active constituents. This is known as a full-spectrum dual extract.

Why Freeze-Drying Makes a Difference

Traditional spray-drying processes used to produce a powdered extract expose the raw material to higher temperatures.

Heat-sensitive compounds, including hericenones in this case, may degrade during this process.

Freeze-drying removes water at very low temperatures, helping preserve these delicate bioactives.

For a mushroom intended specifically for cognitive support, preserving these compounds is likely to be particularly important.

Why 100% Fruiting Body Matters

Another important consideration is what part of the mushroom is actually being used.

Some products may use mycelium (what the Lion’s Mane is grown on), in addition to the fruiting body.

While mycelium certainly contains valuable compounds, such as erinacines, unfortunately elements in the mycelium can still be present in the final product - eg. rice, grain, wood pulp etc - plus, it can be a source of undesirable moulds, which can be challenging to isolate out, and can therefore agitate mould-sensitive individuals.

Using 100% certified organic fruiting bodies provides the mature mushroom itself, where hericenones naturally occur.

Combined with dual extraction and freeze-drying, this creates a product specifically designed to maximise the compounds most closely aligned with cognitive function.

Is Lion's Mane Right for You?

Lion's Mane isn't a stimulant like caffeine. Instead, it appears to work by gradually supporting the biological processes involved in healthy brain and nervous system function.

Current evidence suggests it may be particularly valuable for people wanting to support:

memory
concentration
healthy ageing
cognitive resilience
mental clarity
neuroplasticity
overall brain wellbeing

Lion’s Mane is a natural, plant-based, nutritive food filled with an orchestra of health-promoting compounds. Like with anything you might add to your routine, if you have a diagnosed medical condition, or take prescription medication, it’s always worthwhile to check in with your regular health professional regarding any potential interaction to be aware of. But generally speaking, Lion’s Mane has a long history of safety and use.

Choose The Lion’s Mane That Suits You Best

Check the extraction methods and source of the Lion’s Mane you choose.

If your goal is immune health, almost any mushroom extract rich in beta-glucans may be suitable.

But if your goal is brain health, the science points toward something far more specific: 100% fruiting body, full-spectrum dual extraction, and manufacturing methods that minimise heat to preserve delicate neuroactive compounds such as hericenones.

Because when it comes to supporting your brain, how your Lion's Mane is made may be just as important as the mushroom itself.