Cognitive & neuro
Selank
FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY
Also known as: TP-7, Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro
- Regulatory status
- Research only
- Evidence grade
- Anecdotal reports only
Last reviewed September 1, 2026 · 10 sources
What Selank is and how it works
Selank is a synthetic heptapeptide built from tuftsin, the endogenous immunomodulatory tetrapeptide Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg, extended at the C-terminus with Pro-Gly-Pro. The extension is the same stabilizing trick used to make Semax out of an ACTH fragment, and it comes from the same Moscow institutional lineage. Its purpose is to slow enzymatic degradation enough that a very short peptide survives long enough to act.
The proposed mechanism has two strands, and both are described in animals or in isolated preparations. The first is GABAergic. In rats given a single 300 micrograms per kilogram administration of either the peptide or GABA, 45 of 84 genes involved in neurotransmission changed expression in the frontal cortex at one hour and 22 at three hours; the abstract reports those counts for administration of the compounds rather than for the peptide alone, and states that the changes the two produced within the first hour were positively correlated.[4] Radioligand binding work then found the peptide behaving as a positive allosteric modulator of GABA binding, with a subtype-selective and concentration-dependent profile, and able to block the modulatory activity of diazepam and of olanzapine.[5] The authors of that work frame it as a hypothesis their data support rather than an established receptor pharmacology, and that framing is the correct one to carry forward.
The second strand is opioidergic. In patients with anxiety and phobic disorders, enkephalin half-life was shortened and total blood enkephalinase activity reduced during generalized anxiety, though not during panic disorder or agoraphobia. The peptide inhibited enzymatic hydrolysis of plasma enkephalin dose-dependently, with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration of 15 micromolar, more potently than the peptidase inhibitors bacitracin and puromycin.[6] That is an enzyme assay, and the inference from it to a clinical anxiolytic effect is the authors' proposal rather than a measured chain of events in a treated person.
Tuftsin's own biology is immunological, and the analog retains some of it. In mice, a single 100 micrograms per kilogram injection produced a threefold drop in C3 messenger RNA within 30 minutes, a wave-like alteration in Casp1 messenger RNA, altered Il2rg expression at early time points and a reduction in Xcr1 at 90 minutes, with the short fragment Gly-Pro reproducing much of the profile.[9]
What the research actually shows
The human anxiety literature exists, and its design is the thing to read. The single record PubMed indexes as a randomized controlled trial compared phenazepam monotherapy in 30 patients against the peptide given in addition to phenazepam in 40 patients, in anxiety-phobic, hypochondriac and somatoform disorders. Assessment used HDRS, CGI and Spielberger scales, the UKU tolerability scale, Stroop and verbal fluency tests, and SF-36. What the authors reported is that phenazepam's effect on HDRS arrived earlier when the peptide was added, and that the combination lowered phenazepam's undesirable effects — impaired attention and memory, asthenia, sedation, increased sleep duration, sexual disturbance, emotional indifference and orthostatism — both during treatment and after the tranquillizer was withdrawn, with a measured improvement in quality of life.[1]
Those are real findings and they should not be softened. They are also findings about a two-arm comparison in which both arms received a benzodiazepine. There is no placebo arm and no arm in which the peptide was given alone. A design of that shape can show that adding something changed the course of benzodiazepine treatment; it cannot show what that something does on its own, and it is not interchangeable with a placebo-controlled efficacy trial. A reader who collapses the two has been given a stronger belief than the study supports.
The second human study is an active-comparator study. A 2014 report compared the peptide against phenazepam in 60 patients with phobic-anxiety and somatoform disorders and described pronounced anxiolytic and mild nootropic effects, with the anxiolytic effect persisting for a week after the last administration and a positive impact on quality of life.[2] It is indexed as a clinical trial and a comparative study rather than as a randomized one, and it has no placebo arm either.
The immunological human work is uncontrolled. In vitro at 0.1 micromolar the peptide completely suppressed interleukin-6 gene expression in peripheral blood of patients with depression, but not of healthy controls, while raising IL-6 concentration in patient cell culture; in patients with generalized anxiety disorder and neurasthenia given the peptide for 14 days, the Th1/Th2 cytokine balance in serum shifted, with the two directions of change inversely correlated.[3] The authors proposed the compound as a novel immunomodulator. No control group is described.
The animal work is the most cleanly interpretable material here. In outbred rats drinking 10% ethanol as their only fluid for 30 weeks, 0.3 milligrams per kilogram per day intraperitoneally for 7 days prevented ethanol-induced memory and attention disturbance in an object recognition test and prevented the ethanol-induced rise in hippocampal and frontal-cortex BDNF; in 9-month-old rats never exposed to ethanol, the same regimen produced a cognitive-stimulating effect.[8] A separate rat study under unpredictable chronic mild stress reported that a course of either the peptide or diazepam given alone moved anxiety indicators toward deterioration in the absence of stress, which is a result worth noticing precisely because it runs against the compound's reputation.[7]
Where the evidence is weak
No published placebo-controlled trial has ever isolated this compound in humans. That single sentence is the most important thing on this page. Everything human in the literature is either an addition to a benzodiazepine, a comparison against a benzodiazepine, or an uncontrolled cytokine observation. The marketing claim that reaches most readers — anxiolysis without sedation and without dependence — describes an effect profile that no placebo-controlled trial has established and a dependence profile that no study has looked for.
The tolerability finding is about a different drug. The UKU data everyone cites measure how much of phenazepam's side-effect burden a patient carried under two regimens. Reduced sedation, reduced memory impairment and reduced sleep-duration increase are properties of the benzodiazepine arm, observed to differ. Reading them as this compound's own safety profile inverts what was measured.[1]
An independent review characterizes the compound as poorly studied. A 2021 US review of GABA-receptor-active sedative-hypnotics — the one substantial appraisal on this page written outside the originating research community — groups Selank with phenibut as a poorly studied Russian drug with a GABAergic mechanism sold to US consumers, and argues that agents with GABA-modulating properties should be evaluated for abuse potential before public access rather than after it.[10] The review reports no harms attributed to Selank. It reports the absence of the evaluation that would find them, which is a different and more uncomfortable thing than a clean record.
The interaction question is real and unresolved. Binding work found the peptide's joint action with benzodiazepines regulating GABA binding in a way the authors called not cumulative and different from either substance individually, and found it able to block diazepam's and olanzapine's modulatory activity.[5] In rats, the combination of diazepam and the peptide behaved differently under chronic stress than either did alone.[7] Neither result predicts what happens in a person already taking a benzodiazepine or an antipsychotic, and no human interaction study exists to answer it.
No human dose is published in a form this page can cite. The clinical reports give patient counts, rating scales and durations. Their abstracts do not give the administered amount. That is why the protocol block above holds animal figures only: a fact that cannot be cited to a paper containing it does not get a weaker citation.
The research base is narrow and largely one lineage. The mechanism work, the gene-expression work, the enkephalinase work and both clinical studies share institutional origin and, in several cases, senior authors. No independent group outside that community has published a controlled trial of this compound.
Legal and regulatory status
Selank is not approved by the FDA for any indication. No US product containing it has ever been approved, so there is no approved labeling and no indication assigned to it by any US regulator. What circulates under the name is distributed for laboratory research use, and that is what the research-only framing on this page reflects.
Someone nominated selank acetate for the section 503A bulks list — the list of bulk drug substances a compounding pharmacy may lawfully use. The agency sorted that nomination into category 2, meaning FDA had identified the substance as potentially presenting significant safety risks, and the nominator subsequently withdrew it, so the evaluation never concluded. FDA's recorded concern was the risk of immunogenicity for certain routes of administration arising from the potential for aggregation and peptide-related impurities, together with the agency lacking important information regarding any safety issues raised by selank acetate administered to humans. The net position is that it is not on the 503A bulks list and no lawful compounding pathway exists for it in the United States. An independent US review of GABA-receptor-active agents nonetheless records that the compound is sold to US consumers as a dietary supplement, and argues that agents with GABA-modulating properties should be evaluated for abuse potential before public access rather than after it.[10] That is those authors' characterization of a market, not a regulatory determination, and nothing in it makes the compound an approved product or an established supplement ingredient.
What the published clinical work says about this compound's regulatory home is that Selank is a registered medicinal product in the Russian Federation, used there in clinical practice as an anxiolytic; that is the setting the human studies above were run in. That description comes from the literature and not from a register PHL could read. The Russian State Register of Medicines offers no interface this review could query, so the registration is reported at the limit of what was checked rather than as a confirmed regulatory fact in either direction. Whatever status exists there was granted by a different agency against a different evidentiary bar, and it says nothing about what the FDA has or has not concluded — the two are not comparable currencies. It appears here because it explains where the trials came from, and for no other reason. PHL does not sell peptides and takes no position on how unapproved material reaches anyone.
Questions to bring to a provider
The useful conversation is about the anxiety, not about the peptide. Questions worth raising:
- The human studies here either added this compound to a benzodiazepine, compared it against one, or observed cytokines with no control group at all. None of them used a placebo. What would count as evidence that it works on its own?[1][3]
- Is the anxiety itself characterized — generalized, panic, phobic, situational, or secondary to something else — and does that change which treatments have actual evidence behind them?
- Given that the compound is a positive allosteric modulator of GABA binding in binding assays and can block diazepam's modulatory activity, what happens if it is present alongside a prescribed benzodiazepine or antipsychotic?[5]
- No study has looked for abuse potential, tolerance, or a withdrawal syndrome. How would either of us notice one developing?[10]
- The published immune findings include suppressed IL-6 gene expression in patients and a shifted Th1/Th2 balance. Does an autoimmune history or current immunosuppression change the conversation?[3]
- Nothing about an unapproved compound guarantees that a vial holds the molecule named on it, at the strength named on it. Does that uncertainty change whether an experiment nobody can measure is worth running at all?
A clinician who answers "there is no placebo-controlled trial of this in anyone" is describing the literature accurately, not being dismissive.
Evidence by claim
Grades describe how strong the evidence is; the line under each grade describes what kind of studies it is. How we grade evidence.
- Anxiety reduction in humans
-
Anecdotal reports only
human RCT · human observational
The design of the human work decides this grade, not the direction of its results. The single record PubMed indexes as a randomized controlled trial compared phenazepam monotherapy in 30 patients against the peptide given in addition to phenazepam in 40 patients, in anxiety-phobic, hypochondriac and somatoform disorders, using HDRS, CGI, the Spielberger scales, UKU tolerability, Stroop and verbal fluency tests and SF-36. Its reported findings are that phenazepam's effect on HDRS arrived earlier when the peptide was added and that phenazepam's side-effect burden was lower. Both arms received a benzodiazepine; there was no placebo arm and no arm isolating the peptide, so nothing in that design can separate the peptide's own anxiolytic effect from the benzodiazepine's. A separate 2014 study compared the peptide against phenazepam in 60 patients with phobic-anxiety and somatoform disorders and reported pronounced anxiolytic and mild nootropic effects persisting a week after the last administration; it is indexed as a clinical trial and a comparative study, not as randomized, and it too has no placebo arm. Comparison with an active drug and addition to an active drug are useful designs, and neither of them is a placebo-controlled efficacy trial.
- Cognitive effects in humans
-
Anecdotal reports only
human RCT · human observational
Cognitive measures appear in the human literature but never as the question being asked. The add-on comparison administered the Stroop and verbal fluency tests, and the 2014 active-comparator study described mild nootropic effects, without either report presenting a cognitive endpoint result in its published abstract. No published trial has tested this compound against a cognitive endpoint in healthy people, and no published trial has tested it against a cognitive endpoint with a placebo control in anyone.
- Sleep benefit
-
Anecdotal reports only
human RCT
No cited study measured a sleep endpoint, and the only sleep-related observation in the human literature runs in the opposite direction from the claim: increased sleep duration appears in the add-on comparison as one of the undesirable effects of phenazepam that the combination reduced. No polysomnography, no sleep-diary endpoint, and no insomnia population appears anywhere in this compound's published human work.
- Allosteric modulation of GABAergic neurotransmission
-
Animal studies only
animal · in vitro
This is the best-supported mechanism and none of it is a clinical result. In rat frontal cortex, 45 of 84 neurotransmission-related genes changed expression 1 hour after a single 300 micrograms per kilogram administration and 22 at 3 hours; the abstract reports those counts for administration of the compounds — the peptide or GABA — rather than for the peptide alone, and reports that the changes the two produced within the first hour were positively correlated. Radioligand binding work found the peptide acted as a positive allosteric modulator of GABA binding, with a subtype-selective, concentration-dependent profile. The authors present this as a hypothesis their data support, not as an established receptor pharmacology.
- Inhibition of enkephalin-degrading enzymes as a proposed anxiolytic mechanism
-
Anecdotal reports only
human observational
In patients with anxiety and phobic disorders, enkephalin half-life was shortened and total blood enkephalinase activity reduced during generalized anxiety but not during panic disorder or agoraphobia. The peptide inhibited enzymatic hydrolysis of plasma enkephalin in a dose-dependent way with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration of 15 micromolar, more potently than bacitracin or puromycin. No animal study supports this claim: the evidence behind it is an uncontrolled observation in patients alongside an ex-vivo plasma enzyme assay, proposed as an explanation for a clinical effect rather than demonstrating that the mechanism operates in a treated person.
- Memory protection under chronic alcohol exposure
-
Animal studies only
animal
In outbred rats drinking 10% ethanol as their only fluid for 30 weeks, 0.3 milligrams per kilogram per day intraperitoneally for 7 days prevented ethanol-induced memory and attention disturbance in an object recognition test and prevented the ethanol-induced rise in BDNF in the hippocampus and frontal cortex; in 9-month-old rats not exposed to ethanol the same regimen produced a cognitive-stimulating effect. No equivalent human study exists.
FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY
Typical protocol range in the research
-
Rats given a single administration, with the expression of 84 neurotransmission-related genes measured in the frontal cortex at 1 and 3 hours; GABA was given at the same figure as the comparator
300 micrograms per kilogram of body weight [4]
-
Outbred rats receiving 10% ethanol as their only fluid for 30 weeks, tested for object recognition and for BDNF content in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex
0.3 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day, intraperitoneally, for 7 days [8]
-
Mice given a single intraperitoneal injection, with the expression of the C3, Casp1, Il2rg and Xcr1 genes measured in the spleen over the following 90 minutes
100 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, single injection [9]
Every figure above is an animal figure. No published human trial of Selank reports its dose regimen in a form this page can cite, so no human range appears here rather than a weakly sourced one. That absence is itself worth noticing: the human reports describe patient numbers, rating scales and treatment durations, and leave the administered amount out of the published abstract. Community figures have no published trial behind them and are not reported here.
Ranges are what published research reports, not a recommendation. PHL does not prescribe, and nothing here is personalized to you.
Side effects & safety signals
-
Abuse and dependence potential has not been evaluated
Not established · An independent US review of GABA-receptor-active sedative-hypnotics characterizes Selank as a poorly studied Russian drug with a GABAergic mechanism that is nonetheless sold to US consumers, and argues that agents with GABA-modulating properties should be evaluated for abuse potential before public access rather than after it. The review does not report harms attributed to Selank; it reports the absence of the evaluation that would detect them.
-
Interaction with benzodiazepines and antipsychotics
Observed in receptor binding and in rats · In radioligand binding work the peptide acted as a positive allosteric modulator of GABA binding, and its joint action with benzodiazepines regulated that binding in a way the authors described as not cumulative and different from either substance alone; it was also able to block the modulatory activity of diazepam and of olanzapine. In rats, a course of either the peptide or diazepam shifted anxiety indicators toward deterioration even in the absence of chronic stress. Anyone taking a benzodiazepine, a GABAergic sedative, or an antipsychotic has a concrete reason to raise this compound with a clinician before considering anything.
-
Modulation of immune and inflammatory gene expression
Reported in patients and in mice · In vitro at 0.1 micromolar the peptide completely suppressed interleukin-6 gene expression in peripheral blood of patients with depression but not of healthy controls, while increasing IL-6 concentration in patient cell culture; in patients with generalized anxiety disorder and neurasthenia given the peptide for 14 days, the Th1/Th2 cytokine balance in serum shifted. In mice, a single injection produced a threefold fall in C3 messenger RNA within 30 minutes and altered Casp1, Il2rg and Xcr1 expression. What sustained immune-gene modulation does in a person has not been studied, and an autoimmune, immunosuppressed, or active-infection history is a provider-discussion flag rather than a documented contraindication.
-
Tolerability data describe a benzodiazepine, not this compound
Not independently established · The most-cited tolerability finding is that adding the peptide to phenazepam reduced phenazepam's undesirable effects — impaired attention and memory, asthenia, sedation, increased sleep duration, sexual disturbance, emotional indifference and orthostatism — during treatment and after the tranquillizer was withdrawn. That is a measurement of a benzodiazepine's side-effect burden under two regimens. It is not a characterization of this compound's own safety profile, and it does not become one by repetition.
Published lists are never exhaustive, so report anything unexpected to a licensed provider.
Storage, handling & reconstitution
- Lyophilized storage
- Lyophilized Selank is conventionally kept refrigerated at 2–8 °C and protected from light, with freezing used for longer holding. No published stability study addresses shelf life of the powder in a vial, and none of the cited literature speaks to it; the published chemistry concerns receptor binding and gene expression rather than storage.
- Reconstituted storage
- Once in solution, peptides are conventionally refrigerated at 2–8 °C, protected from light, and treated as short-dated rather than indefinitely stable. No published study establishes a solution shelf life for Selank.
- Reconstitution diluent
- The conventional diluent for lyophilized research peptides, including Selank, is bacteriostatic water: sterile water preserved with 0.9% benzyl alcohol. Sterile water without a preservative is used where a preservative is contraindicated and is treated as single-use.
- Reconstitution & handling
- Conventional handling: sanitize the stopper before piercing it, add the diluent slowly down the inside wall of the vial rather than directly onto the powder, and let the powder dissolve on its own. Swirl gently if needed; never shake. A properly reconstituted solution is clear, and anything cloudy, discoloured, or carrying visible particulate is discarded. PHL does not publish volume or unit calculations and does not describe how any preparation is administered, because those are dosing and administration decisions that belong with a licensed clinician.
- Handling notes
- Selank has no approved manufacturer in the United States, so there is no label, no assigned beyond-use date, and no lot-level stability testing standing behind any storage claim here. FDA has separately identified aggregation and peptide-related impurities as concerns for material carrying this name. Treat the conventions above as conventions, and note that nothing guarantees a vial holds the molecule its label names at the concentration claimed.
The how-to guides cover the conventions behind these fields, and what the published stability data does and does not establish: Storage, Reconstitution, Handling.
Questions for your provider
Bring this page to a licensed provider. A provider can order labs, review your medications and history, and tell you whether anything here is relevant to your situation. This page can't. Peptide Health Lab does not prescribe and does not sell peptides.
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Citations
10 sources · every identifier checked against PubMed
- [1] Optimization of the treatment of anxiety disorders with selank · Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova, 2015. Human RCT
- [2] A comparison of the anxiolytic effect and tolerability of selank and phenazepam in the treatment of anxiety disorders · Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova, 2014. Human observational study
- [3] Immunomodulatory effects of selank in patients with anxiety-asthenic disorders · Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova, 2008. Human observational study
- [4] Selank Administration Affects the Expression of Some Genes Involved in GABAergic Neurotransmission · Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2016. Animal study
- [5] Peptide-based Anxiolytics: The Molecular Aspects of Heptapeptide Selank Biological Activity · Protein and Peptide Letters, 2018. In vitro study
- [6] The inhibitory effect of Selank on enkephalin-degrading enzymes as a possible mechanism of its anxiolytic activity · Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2001. Human observational study
- [7] Peptide Selank Enhances the Effect of Diazepam in Reducing Anxiety in Unpredictable Chronic Mild Stress Conditions in Rats · Behavioural Neurology, 2017. Animal study
- [8] Selank, Peptide Analogue of Tuftsin, Protects Against Ethanol-Induced Memory Impairment by Regulating of BDNF Content in the Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex in Rats · Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2019. Animal study
- [9] The temporary dynamics of inflammation-related genes expression under tuftsin analog Selank action · Molecular Immunology, 2014. Animal study
- [10] Sedative-Hypnotic Agents That Impact Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid Receptors: Focus on Flunitrazepam, Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid, Phenibut, and Selank · The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 2021. Review
Before you act on any of this
This page is educational only and is not medical advice. It does not diagnose, treat, or prescribe. Review it with a licensed provider before making any health decision. Peptide Health Lab does not sell peptides.
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