The evidence for focus.
Semax and Selank: decades of Russian clinical use, thin placebo-controlled data, and what that means for a focus protocol.
Studies on this page
6 fetched
each read from its source
A focus protocol here runs on Semax or Selank. Both come out of the same Russian research programme, both are used clinically there, and both have a published evidence base that would not satisfy a regulator in this part of the world.
This page is the shortest in the wing, and the reason is that the trials are few, small, mostly in one language, and mostly in people with a diagnosed condition rather than in the people who take these compounds now.
Semax
Semax is a synthetic fragment related to a fragment of adrenocorticotropic hormone, developed and used clinically in Russia. It is given intranasally in the published trials and it is registered there for neurological indications, which is a different regulatory system from the one this site is under.
What has been studied.
| Study | Who | n | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 20181clinical trial | People rehabilitating after ischaemic stroke, early and late groups | 110 | Two 10-day courses |
| Plasma BDNF, a nerve growth factor, rose regardless of when rehabilitation started, alongside motor and daily-function scores. | |||
| Bull Exp Biol Med 20182imaging study | Healthy volunteers, treated and placebo | 24 | Before, 5 and 20 minutes after a single dose |
| Functional brain imaging showed a larger default mode network component in the treated group than in controls. A brain-activity finding, not a performance one. | |||
| Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 19973controlled clinical trial | People in the acute period of hemispheric ischaemic stroke, against 80 controls | 30 treated | Acute stroke care |
| Added to standard intensive therapy it affected the rate of recovery of the neurological deficit, with electroencephalogram monitoring. | |||
What it is approved for.
- No approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency was found on any page fetched for this build. Its clinical use is Russian and the published trials are Russian.
What has not been studied.
- Every fetched clinical paper is about stroke: the acute period, or rehabilitation afterwards. None is about focus, cognition or mood in a healthy adult.
- The only fetched study in healthy volunteers measured brain imaging after a single dose, not performance at anything.
- The clinical papers are in Russian journals and the fetched records do not describe them as placebo-controlled; the stroke study used a conventional-therapy control group.
- Nothing on long-term use in healthy people.
Side effects, and who stopped.
No adverse effects are reported in the fetched abstracts, and none of these studies was designed as a safety study in healthy adults.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
It has decades of clinical use behind it in one country, for a condition you do not have, studied in a way that would not satisfy a regulator here. The single healthy-volunteer study showed a change in brain network imaging after one dose, which is a long way from a change in your working day.
Selank
Selank is a synthetic peptide based on a fragment of a human immune peptide, developed in the same Russian programme as Semax and used there as an anxiolytic. The published trials compare it against benzodiazepines in people with diagnosed anxiety disorders.
What has been studied.
| Study | Who | n | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 20154RCT | People with anxiety, phobic, hypochondriac and somatoform disorders | 70 | Monotherapy against combined treatment |
| Adding the peptide to a benzodiazepine brought the benzodiazepine's effect on sooner, assessed on standard scales. | |||
| Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 20145comparative clinical trial | People with phobic-anxiety and somatoform disorders | 60 | Compared against a benzodiazepine |
| Anxiety relief and a mild nootropic effect, with the effect lasting a week after the last dose. | |||
| Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 20086comparative study | People with generalised anxiety disorder and neurasthenia | 62 | Compared against a benzodiazepine |
| Anxiety relief similar to the comparator drug, with additional effects on fatigue reported. | |||
What it is approved for.
- No approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency was found on any page fetched for this build.
What has not been studied.
- Every fetched trial was in people with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, neurasthenia or a somatoform disorder. None was in healthy adults wanting to be calmer or sharper.
- The trials are small, sixty to seventy participants, and compare against an active drug rather than against placebo in two of the three.
- Nothing published outside Russia, and nothing in a Filipino population.
- Nothing on long-term use.
Side effects, and who stopped.
Tolerability was a stated endpoint in the comparative trials and is reported favourably against benzodiazepines. There is no long-term dataset and no healthy-adult safety study.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
In people with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, small Russian trials found it worked about as well as a benzodiazepine with a reported tolerability advantage and an effect that outlasted the last dose by a week. Whether any of that applies to a person without an anxiety disorder is untested. If you have one, that is a conversation for a doctor rather than a protocol. Take it to a doctor who knows you before you begin.
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Get startedReading a literature from another system.
Russian clinical research on these peptides is real research: patients, scales, controls of a kind, published in indexed journals. It is also research from a regulatory and publishing culture with different conventions, mostly not placebo-controlled in the fetched records, and rarely replicated outside the country.
Dismissing it entirely would be lazy. Treating it as equivalent to a phase 3 trial would be worse. The honest position is that these two compounds have decades of clinical use behind them for indications you almost certainly do not have, and no evidence at all for the reason people buy them.
What would actually help focus.
Sleep, and it is not close. Every fetched paper in this whole wing that touches cognition is about recovery from a brain injury; none is about a person trying to concentrate on a Tuesday afternoon. The intervention with the best evidence for that is a full night's sleep in a cool dark room.
If you run a focus protocol anyway, run it against something you can measure and be honest about how easily attention responds to expectation. Take it to a doctor who knows you before you begin.
Questions
Do these improve focus in healthy people?
No fetched trial tested that. The clinical trials are in stroke recovery and in diagnosed anxiety disorders. The only healthy-volunteer study measured brain imaging after a single dose.
Why is the research all Russian?
Both compounds were developed in Russia and are used clinically there. No trial from another country was found for either, which is itself a reason to weigh the evidence carefully rather than to dismiss it.
Is Selank like a benzodiazepine?
Two small trials compared it against one and reported similar anxiety relief with a reported tolerability advantage. Those trials were in people with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, which is a medical condition and a matter for a doctor.
What has better evidence for concentration?
Sleep, by a distance, and it is free. The foundations wing covers it for this city, where heat and light in the bedroom are usually the problem.
Sources
Every record below was fetched on the date shown. Nothing on this page is cited that did not fetch.
- 01Gusev EI, et al. [The efficacy of semax in the tretament of patients at different stages of ischemic stroke]. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 2018. PubMed 29798983 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 02Lebedeva IS, et al. Effects of Semax on the Default Mode Network of the Brain. Bull Exp Biol Med 2018. PubMed 30225715 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 03Gusev EI, et al. [Effectiveness of semax in acute period of hemispheric ischemic stroke (a clinical and electrophysiological study)]. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 1997. PubMed 11517472 · read 2026-09-07
- 04Medvedev VE, et al. [Optimization of the treatment of anxiety disorders with selank]. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 2015. PubMed 26356395 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 05Medvedev VE, et al. [A comparison of the anxiolytic effect and tolerability of selank and phenazepam in the treatment of anxiety disorders]. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 2014. PubMed 25176261 · read 2026-09-07
- 06Zozulia AA, et al. [Efficacy and possible mechanisms of action of a new peptide anxiolytic selank in the therapy of generalized anxiety disorders and neurasthenia]. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova 2008. PubMed 18454096 · read 2026-09-07
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