Selank dosage and evidence

What is Selank?

How does Selank work?

It works on GABA, the brain's main calming chemical, and on mood chemicals like serotonin. It slows the breakdown of enkephalins, the body's own calming and pain-relief chemicals. It also affects BDNF. Together this is thought to ease anxiety.

What have studies in people found about Selank?

Selank has been tested in 192 people across three published studies. All three were done in Russia, and all were in people with anxiety. Each one compared selank with an older sedative from the Valium family, not with a dummy pill. The studies report that selank eased anxiety. No study has been run outside Russia, and none is listed on the US trials registry.

• Anxiety and body-symptom disorders, Russia, 2015, 70 people: 30 took the sedative phenazepam alone and 40 took phenazepam plus selank. The group on both got better sooner on a depression rating scale. They also had fewer of the sedative's side effects: trouble with focus and memory, weakness, drowsiness, sleeping longer, sexual problems, feeling flat, and dizziness on standing up. That held while they took both and after the sedative was stopped. The summary gives no sizes for these differences.
• Anxiety and nervous exhaustion, Russia, 2008, 62 people: 30 took selank and 32 took medazepam, a Valium-type sedative. The two drugs eased anxiety about equally. Selank also seemed to lift tiredness and give a mild lift in energy. The team also measured enkephalin, a natural opioid-like chemical, in the blood. In these patients it broke down faster than normal, more so the longer and worse their illness. During selank it lasted longer again, mostly in people with general anxiety.
• Anxiety and phobia disorders, Russia, 2014, 60 people: they took selank or phenazepam, a Valium-type sedative. The authors say selank clearly eased anxiety and gave a mild boost to thinking. They say the calm lasted a week after the last dose. The summary does not give group sizes or how big the effects were, so the size of any difference cannot be read from it.

What this does not tell you: None of the three studies gave anyone a dummy pill, so none can separate the drug from the effect of simply being treated. All three appeared in the same Russian journal, and none gives the size of its results in its summary. Each tested a short course in people with anxiety. None tested the brain boost that drives most online sales, and none followed people after treatment ended. Nobody has published how the body handles selank, what dose works best, or anything about the nasal sprays people actually buy.

What do people who took Selank report?

This is what real people say happened to them, good and bad. Nobody measured it. A report cannot tell a real effect from the lift people get just from expecting it to work, from a diet or training change made at the same time, or from what was really in the vial. We still put it near the top. It is the next best thing to a study in people: what happens when real people use it, including what goes wrong.

• Described consistently as an anti-anxiety compound rather than a stimulant, and repeatedly contrasted with prescription anxiety medication as feeling unlike either an SSRI or a benzodiazepine, without sedation and without a withdrawal narrative.
• The effect size people report is modest. Even favourable accounts describe it as taking the edge off rather than removing anxiety, and some running several hundred micrograms a day report only a very slight effect.
• Pairing with Semax is the most common protocol described, usually by people using Semax for focus who want something to offset its edge. Those reports cannot separate the two compounds.
• A recurring claim is that it reduces the pull toward stimulants, which people describe as one of its more useful properties.
• Reports of nothing happening are common and are usually attributed by others in the thread to dose, route or product authenticity rather than to the compound, which is a pattern worth noticing rather than accepting.
• Side effect discussion is thin. As with anything sold without a trial behind it, that is an absence of reports rather than evidence of safety.

Sources: Mental Health, Brain Health and product discussion threads on LongeCity, found by site-restricted search and read directly, September 2026. Nothing above is attributed to any specific post and no post is reproduced.

The state of the research

The evidence, in charts

The studies we cite

• Study in people2008
  Efficacy and possible mechanisms of action of a new peptide anxiolytic selank in the therapy of generalized anxiety disorders and neurasthenia

  Selank calmed anxiety about as well as a standard sedative, in a small trial. 62 patients with long-running anxiety or exhaustion were split between Selank and medazepam, a benzodiazepine. Both eased anxiety by a similar amount. Selank also appeared to lift energy and alertness, which the sedative did not. Nobody in the trial got a dummy treatment, so neither drug was measured against doing nothing. Sixty-two people is small, and the work comes from a single Russian group.

  62 patients with GAD or neurasthenia randomized to Selank (n=30) or the benzodiazepine medazepam (n=32): anxiolytic effects were similar, and Selank additionally showed anti-asthenic and psychostimulant effects.

  PMID 18454096 Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova
• Study in people2014
  [A comparison of the anxiolytic effect and tolerability of selank and phenazepam in the treatment of anxiety disorders].

  Selank was tested against a sedative drug, not against a dummy pill, so it cannot tell you the peptide beats nothing. Sixty people with anxiety and body-symptom disorders got either selank or phenazepam, a Valium-type sedative. The authors report a strong calming effect and say it lasted a week after the last dose. The published summary gives no sizes, so how big any difference was cannot be read from it. The work was done in Russia.

  60 patients with phobic-anxiety and somatoform disorders (ICD-10 F40.2-9, F41.1-9, F45.0-1) treated with selank or the benzodiazepine phenazepam. The authors report pronounced anxiolytic and mild nootropic effects and an anxiolytic effect lasting a week after the last dose. No placebo arm and no effect sizes in the published abstract.

  PMID 25176261 Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova
• Study in people2015
  [Optimization of the treatment of anxiety disorders with selank].

  Adding selank on top of a Valium-type sedative looked helpful, but again nobody got a dummy pill. Seventy people were treated: thirty on phenazepam alone and forty on phenazepam plus selank. The group on both improved sooner on a depression rating scale. It also had fewer of the sedative's side effects, both during treatment and after the sedative was stopped. Chance decided who went in which group. But the comparison is still another drug, not a pill with nothing in it. The work was done in Russia.

  70 patients: 30 on phenazepam alone and 40 on phenazepam plus selank. The combined group reached an HDRS response earlier and had lower rates of the phenazepam side effects tracked on the UKU scale, during treatment and after tranquilizer withdrawal. Carries PubMed's randomized controlled trial tag; the comparator is a benzodiazepine, not placebo.

  PMID 26356395 Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova
• Review of studies2020
  The occurrence of putative cognitive enhancing research peptides in seized pharmaceutical preparations: An incentive for controlling agencies to prepare for future encounters of the kind.

  This is a forensic chemistry paper, not a trial. Nobody was given a peptide. Two suspicious preparations seized in Europe in 2017 and 2018 were analysed and found to contain selank and semax. The authors state that neither peptide has completed any clinical trial. They found both sold freely online as freeze-dried injection powder and as nasal sprays. They built a laboratory test covering ten such peptides, because control labs could not identify them.

  Two suspicious preparations seized in Europe in 2017 and 2018 were found to contain selank and semax. The authors state these peptides have not completed any clinical trials, report that an open-web search found them freely sold as lyophilized injection powder and in nasal sprays, and developed an LC-MS/MS method covering ten such peptides because control laboratories could not identify them.

  PMID 31667971 Drug Testing and Analysis
• Review of studies2021
  Sedative-Hypnotic Agents That Impact Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid Receptors: Focus on Flunitrazepam, Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid, Phenibut, and Selank.

  This is a review of other people's work, so nobody was given anything. Western pharmacologists group selank with phenibut as poorly studied Russian drugs acting on the brain's calming system. Both are sold to American consumers as dietary supplements. The authors argue that drugs working this way should be checked for abuse potential before the public can buy them, not afterwards. It is an opinion about regulation, not a measurement of whether selank works.

  A Western pharmacology review that groups selank with phenibut as poorly studied Russian drugs with GABAergic mechanisms sold to United States consumers as dietary supplements, and argues that agents with GABA activity should be evaluated for abuse potential before public access rather than after.

  PMID 34396551 Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
• Animal study2003
  Selank and short peptides of the tuftsin family in the regulation of adaptive behavior in stress

  In rats and mice. Under stress, Selank and similar peptides had calming, anti-stress effects.

  In rats and mice under conflict-induced emotional stress, Selank and related tuftsin-family peptides produced positive emotional and anti-stress effects.

  PMID 14969422 Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology