Regard brain fog, memory and cognitive function, Dihexa appears to be a promising option. Way more than Cerebrolysin for BDNF. Since Dihexa is not mentioned at all on the board yet I’m posting to get a discussion started. It’s available to buy, but it’s expensive. A group buy I found is $150 a gram. I intend to experiment at some point.
Five years ago, Harding designed a smaller version of the molecule that he and Wright called Dihexa. Not only is it stable but it can cross the blood-brain barrier. An added bonus is it can move from the gut into the blood, so it can be taken in pill form.
The researchers tested the drug on several dozen rats treated with scopolamine, a chemical that interferes with a neurotransmitter critical to learning and memory. Typically, a rat treated with scopolamine will never learn the location of a submerged platform in a water tank, orienting with cues outside the tank. After receiving the WSU drug, however, all of the rats did, whether they received the drug directly in the brain, orally, or through an injection.
“Same result, every time,” says Harding.
Harding and Wright also reported similar but less dramatic results in a smaller group of old rats. In this study the old rats, which often have difficulty with the task, performed like young rats. While the results were statistically valid, additional studies with larger test groups will be necessary to fully confirm the finding. Currently, the “gold standard” compound for creating neuronal connections is brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, a growth-promoting protein associated with normal brain development and learning. Autopsies of Alzheimer’s patients have found lower levels of BDNF in the brain.
In bench assays using living nerve cells to monitor new neuronal connections, Harding, Wright, and their colleagues found Dihexa to be seven orders of magnitude more powerful than BDNF, which has yet to be effectively developed for therapeutic use. In other words, it would take 10 million times as much BDNF to get as much new synapse formation as Dihexa.
“We quickly found out that this molecule was absolutely, insanely active,” says Harding. These results further suggest that Dihexa or molecules like it may have applications in other neurodegenerative disease or brain traumas where neuronal connections are lost.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121011090653.htm