Research Comparison
Cerebrolysin vs Semax
A side-by-side research comparison of Cerebrolysin and Semax drawn from DRPSHP' peptide database records.
Cerebrolysin
Cerebrolysin does not fit the usual single-molecule template. It is produced by enzymatically digesting porcine (pig) brain protein, yielding a mixture of short peptides and free amino acids, so it has no one sequence, formula or molecular weight; the product is defined by the process and by batch standardisation. Lab and animal studies have looked for neurotrophic-factor-like behaviour. Human trials have concentrated on acute stroke, traumatic brain injury and dementia, and systematic reviews of them disagree. Nobody has isolated which constituents carry the biological activity, which restricts any attribution of an effect to a single mechanism.
Semax
Semax is a seven-residue synthetic peptide, Met-Glu-His-Phe-Pro-Gly-Pro, derived from a short piece of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). Its first four residues correspond to positions 4 to 7 of ACTH, while the Pro-Gly-Pro tail has no counterpart there and is reported to slow breakdown by peptidases. Short ACTH fragments like this are described as lacking the steroid-releasing action of the full hormone. Semax was developed in Russia, and most of what has been published comes from Russian groups using rats and cell cultures. Controlled human studies are few, many appear only in Russian, and independent replication elsewhere is limited.
Reading a comparison
A comparison places two records side by side; it does not merge them. Each description above is drawn from that compound's own record, and the two were not necessarily characterised by the same methods, at the same time, or to the same level of detail. Before comparing any attribute, it is worth establishing that both records describe the substance you think they describe — names are not identifiers, and two entries sharing a name can differ in salt form, stereochemistry or the convention used to state a mass. Where a figure carries no method beside it, the comparison is between two reported numbers rather than between two measurements.