Category · Nootropic peptides
Nootropic peptides: the Russian literature.
Most of these peptides come out of Russian / Eastern European clinical research and have a sizable home-country evidence base, much of which is hard to verify and rarely replicated in Western trials. We grade strictly on rigorous, replicable human evidence.
Selank and semax are short peptides developed in Russia (selank as an anxiolytic, semax for cognitive recovery after stroke). Both have decades of Russian clinical use and a meaningful body of Russian publications, but the English-language replication record is thin. Cerebrolysin is a porcine brain-derived preparation widely used in Eastern Europe for stroke and dementia, with large but mixed trials. Dihexa is a synthetic compound with striking in-vitro and animal data but essentially no controlled human trials.
The grading honesty here matters: a compound used clinically for 30 years in one country with limited international replication is not the same as an FDA-approved drug with phase-3 trials, and we don't pretend it is.
- 6/10 · Preliminary Cerebrolysin Acute ischemic stroke, vascular dementia, Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury
- 6/10 · Preliminary Selank Anxiety, stress, and cognitive or nootropic effects.
- 6/10 · Preliminary Semax Stroke recovery, cognitive and memory disorders, neuroprotection; nootropic use.
- 3/10 · Animal only Dihexa Synaptogenesis and cognition in animal models; promoted online as a nootropic.
Reading this class honestly
See the Codex Scale for how we weight replicated vs. single-region trials. For the gray-market sourcing context that applies to most of these compounds in the U.S., see the gray market.