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TissueReligion  1yr ago (slatestarcodex.com)   1828 thread views

Thoughts 8 years later on the SSC article on russian psychopharmacology?

slatestarcodex.com

The nootropics spaces online (notably /r/nootropics, among others) contain references to compounds like semax or noopept which seem to have unclear support from the literature, or in the case of semax have hundreds of studies from russian labs, and only a single one from a western lab (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschemneuro.1c00707).

After having little success with the headache meds my doctors have been prescribing me, I was thinking of trying some of these compounds. I was curious what your guys' thoughts are on these compounds. Is there a good reason they haven't been studied much in the west yet, or is it just inertia?

Open to any thoughts.

Thanks.

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Unless you can read Russian fluently and have good general medical knowledge, I wouldn't risk it regardless of how well the idea is in theory. There is a reason that medications require prescriptions.

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