Cortagen

Cortagen is a synthetic tetrapeptide (four amino acids: Ala-Glu-Asp-Pro) from the short-peptide programme of Khavinson and colleagues at the St Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology. It was designed from the amino acid make-up of Cortexin, a peptide preparation extracted from brain cortex, so it is a brain-cortex peptide, not an adrenal one as some older descriptions say. Published work is in cells and animals. In rats with a cut and stitched sciatic nerve, the regrowing nerve fibres of treated animals grew and carried signals faster than those of controls (Turchaninova et al., 2000). A rat study of long-term poor blood supply to the brain measured behaviour and markers of oxidative damage, and a mouse study used gene arrays to record changes in the activity of about 110 known genes in heart tissue (Anisimov et al., 2004). The evidence is thin. Most papers come from Khavinson's group and partners in St Petersburg, are small, appear mainly in Russian journals and have not been independently repeated. We found no published controlled human trials. How it behaves in the body, its safety and whether the animal findings apply to people are not known. Supplied for laboratory research use only.