Pinealon

EDR peptide, Glu-Asp-Arg, EDR tripeptide, Pinealon-6

Checked Oct 28, 2026

The short answer

No human evidence yet for sleep and brain protection in healthy adults

Grade D for sleep and brain protection in healthy adults: no controlled human trial exists and no human report measured sleep, so a placebo effect cannot be ruled out.

Approved?: Not approved for any use.
Safety: C, thinly characterized: No controlled safety data exist, and one 32-person uncontrolled report saw fewer circulating CD34+ blood progenitor cells while its authors called the peptides safe at the nuclear genetic level.

We tried it. This is what happened.

Pinealon: a sleep experiment, written down before the result RunningI published the setup before I knew the answer, so I could not quietly rewrite the question. The two-week read is in.

The full answer: what it is for, the dose, the units

What people take it for: People take it hoping for deeper sleep, sharper memory and protection of the aging brain, mostly after Andrew Huberman described using it for sleep.

Does it work for sleep and brain protection in healthy adults? D, no human evidence yet. Result: not tested in humans.

Grade D for sleep and brain protection in healthy adults: no controlled human trial exists and no human report measured sleep, so a placebo effect cannot be ruled out. The best human data are a few small uncontrolled Russian reports on biological age and adaptation (grade C).

No approval for any use.

Highest evidence for any use: C for biological-age and adaptation measures in small uncontrolled Russian human reports (2012 to 2016).

Safety: C, thinly characterized. No controlled safety data exist, and one 32-person uncontrolled report saw fewer circulating CD34+ blood progenitor cells while its authors called the peptides safe at the nuclear genetic level.

Do not use if: Pregnancy and lactation (by convention, not proven risk).

Could it be placebo? No controlled trial for this use, so a placebo effect cannot be ruled out; sleep and memory are subjective outcomes and the best-known report is one person's uncontrolled experience taken with glycine.

The dose people use, and the units to draw

No clinical dose for injection exists in any named source. Oral figures run from 100 mcg twice daily for 2 weeks (a Russian worker study) to what Dr. Abud Bakri says people take, half a milligram up to three milligrams; no named source gives 10 mg.

Source	Dose	How often and how	Who it was for	Link
Nazimko et al. 2012, locomotive crew workers	100 mcg per capsule	One capsule twice daily, oral, 2 weeks	Workers of locomotive brigades; the abstract does not state the number of subjects or a placebo arm	Abstract: "1 capsule containing 100 mkg of Pinealon 2 times a day" for two weeks
Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab (June 1, 2026), own use	No dose stated	A very small injection at a mid-night waking; he describes it as occasional	One person's own use, uncontrolled	Chapter 01:07:25 area; auto-transcript, verify by ear
Dr. Abud Bakri, Huberman Lab (June 1, 2026), what people take orally	Half a milligram up to three milligrams	Oral; frequency not stated	Described as what people settle on, in answer to a question about dosages, not a recommendation	Chapter 01:07:25 (Pinealon and Epitalon); auto-transcript, verify by ear
Dr. Abud Bakri, Huberman Lab (June 1, 2026), Russian product	About 200 micrograms	Not stated; he adds that some people inject it	The Russian (Khavinson group) product, as described by the guest	Chapter 01:07:25, same passage as above; auto-transcript, verify by ear
Dr. Abud Bakri, Huberman Lab (June 1, 2026), Khavinson literature	10 to 100 micrograms of the raw peptide	Not stated	Describes the dosages in the Khavinson literature for bioregulator peptides such as epitalon and pinealon; separately says 10 milligrams refers to peptide mixes, including a desiccated brain extract that might give a few hundred micrograms of the peptide	Near 01:44:48 (dosing of raw peptides and mixes); auto-transcript, verify by ear

Named sources range from 10 micrograms (raw-peptide literature, Dr. Bakri) and 100 micrograms twice daily (Nazimko 2012) up to three milligrams oral (Dr. Bakri on what people take); none is a controlled dose-finding study.

No label, controlled trial, Examine or Attia source gives a Pinealon dose, and the human reports we opened (PMIDs 26390612, 23734521, 28539017) give none. No named source states an injected dose; ranges printed on this site before had no named source and are removed. No named source gives the higher dose some users quote; where the Bakri episode mentions milligrams it refers to peptide mixes, a brain-extract capsule or a vial size. Dr. Bakri's figures are commentary, not trial data. A twice-daily figure for brain-injury patients appears only on secondary web pages; the Molecules 2020 review that cites the 72 patients gives no dose.

Reported by the named source, never prescribed by us.

How many units do I draw?

Units come from three numbers you set yourself: vial mg, water mL and the dose in mg. Use the calculator, and check the vial size first; this page does not recommend a Pinealon dose. Open the dose calculator

Why it might work

Cell nuclear penetration
Pinealon (Glu-Asp-Arg
DNA promoter interaction
Molecular docking and ion-interaction
MAPK/ERK and antioxidant pathway modulation
Cell-culture studies show pinealon del
Downstream neuroprotection (assumed)
Reduced reactive oxygen species

Assumed pathway, not shown in people.

ASSUMED (theoretical, not proven in vivo in humans). Pinealon (Glu-Asp-Arg) is proposed to act as a short-peptide epigenetic regulator: the tripeptide penetrates cell nuclei (confirmed in HeLa cell fluorescence studies) and is modeled to interact with guanine base atoms in DNA promoter regions. This is proposed to upregulate genes involved in neuroprotection, antioxidant defense (via MAPK/ERK pathway modulation), and apoptosis suppression. In pineal gland tissue specifically, it is theorized to activate CREB transcription factor to upregulate melatonin synthesis genes (AANAT). All of this is mechanistically plausible and partially supported by cell-culture data, but has not been demonstrated in human tissue in vivo.

The trials, claim by claim

Cell-culture claims are graded D because the rubric reserves C for human data and A and B for controlled human trials. The memory claim for brain-injury patients rests on a review whose underlying report we could not open.

People use it for REM sleep and brain aging, mostly off the back of Huberman's n=1 report where he co-administered glycine, so attribution is impossible.
The preclinical science is real but comes entirely from one Russian lab, and one of the small PubMed-indexed human reports found inhibition of blood stem cell production, which nobody in the community talks about.
Oral bioavailability is expected to be near zero for a tripeptide; the Russian clinical protocol used oral dosing anyway, which means the route-of-administration question alone is still completely open.

Pinealon reduces reactive oxygen species in neuronal cell cultures

Result: not tested in humans

In vitro study in cerebellar granule cells, neutrophils, and PC12 cells showed dose-dependent ROS suppression and delayed ERK1/2 activation under oxidative stress conditions. Cell-culture finding, not a human trial. Single research group.

Khavinson et al. 2011, Rejuvenation Research, PMID 21978084

Pinealon restores neuronal dendritic spine density in Alzheimer's disease cell models

Result: not tested in humans

Mouse hippocampal neuron cultures exposed to amyloid-induced synaptotoxicity showed 71% increase in mushroom spine number at 200 ng/ml EDR. In vitro only. Authors explicitly recommended further experimental study before clinical application.

Kraskovskaya et al. 2017, Bull Exp Biol Med, PMID 28853087

Pinealon improves offspring cognition when given to pregnant rats exposed to high homocysteine

Result: not tested in humans

Rat model: pregnant animals on high-methionine diet received EDR; offspring showed improved spatial orientation, learning, and reduced cerebellar neuron ROS. Rodent model of prenatal metabolic stress. Not translatable to healthy adult humans.

Arutjunyan et al. 2012, Int J Clin Exp Med, PMID 22567179

Pinealon improves memory in patients recovering from traumatic brain injury

Result: not tested in humans

The Khavinson group's 2020 review states that oral Pinealon alongside standard therapy helped memory and headaches in 72 patients with brain-injury aftereffects. That figure traces to a 2013 review article (PMID 24738258), not to a trial report. No placebo arm, controls, dose or duration could be verified, so this claim cannot be independently checked from public sources.

Khavinson et al., Molecules 2020, EDR peptide review (cites the 72-patient report)

Status

No human study of Pinealon measured sleep.

All five indexed human abstracts (2012 to 2016) report biological-age, adaptation, psychoemotional or work-ability measures; none reports sleep.

Meshchaninov et al., Adv Gerontol 2015 (and four others)

Pinealon interacts with DNA to epigenetically regulate neuroprotective gene expression

Result: not tested in humans

Molecular docking and ion-interaction models show Glu-Asp-Arg partly penetrates the major groove of DNA, potentially affecting guanine N7/O6 base atoms. HeLa cell fluorescence confirms cellular penetration. This is a proposed mechanism only, not proven to cause specific gene expression changes in human neurons in vivo.

Silanteva et al. 2019, role of ions in Glu-Asp-Arg-DNA interaction (J Phys Chem B, PMID 30762356)

Risks and the label warnings

Adverse events

Minimal adverse events reported in the Russian clinical and preclinical literature. Injection-site reactions (redness, mild swelling) are the most commonly listed. Some users report very vivid or intense dreams, transient mild headache, and minor fatigue. Small blood sugar drops noted in a small number of anecdotal reports. No serious adverse events documented in available published material. One of five small PubMed-indexed human reports (PMID 26390612, 32 patients) found significant inhibition of hemopoiesis as measured by decreased CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells. That study's authors explicitly called for additional safety studies before broader use.

Contraindications

Pregnancy and lactation (by convention, not proven risk). Active seizure disorders or a history of neurological conditions warrant caution given CNS targeting. Under 18. Allergy to any component. Given the hemopoiesis inhibition signal found in PMID 26390612, individuals with blood disorders or on chemotherapy or immunosuppressive agents should exercise additional caution.

Theoretical concerns

Pinealon targets the central nervous system and is claimed to influence epigenetic gene regulation. Long-term consequences of exogenous epigenetic modulation in healthy adults are completely unstudied. Any peptide with CNS activity in a poorly characterized population carries unknown risk. Melatonin-pathway modulation could theoretically disrupt circadian regulation if used chronically and incorrectly timed. The hemopoiesis inhibition signal from one small PubMed-indexed human report adds an unresolved safety question that has not been followed up in any published study.

What nobody knows yet

No pharmacokinetic data (half-life, bioavailability, distribution, clearance) exists from formal human or animal studies. Oral bioavailability is theoretically very low for a tripeptide but has not been measured. Long-term effect on endogenous pineal or melatonin regulation is unknown. Interactions with TRT, GLP-1 agonists, melatonin supplements, or other peptides are unstudied. The clinical significance of the hemopoiesis inhibition signal from the 2015 human study is unknown, as no follow-up study has been published.

What else could explain the result

The biggest confound in community reports is co-administration with glycine (3-5g oral), which independently improves sleep quality and REM in controlled trials and is commonly paired with Pinealon in clinician protocols (Dr. Craig Koniver recommends 3 to 5 g), so any sleep effect is hard to attribute. Users also frequently stack Pinealon with Epitalon (another Khavinson pineal bioregulator), making cross-compound attribution impossible. TRT independently improves sleep architecture and cognitive function. The wellness community stacks these together and attributes outcomes to Pinealon by default.

Is the vial what it says?

Cross-checked against the cited sources below. The grade reflects the absence of formal human safety and efficacy data. The TBI human study has no publicly accessible primary source and is treated as unverified; a 2020 Molecules review is cited for it. PMID 26390612, one of five small PubMed-indexed human reports including Pinealon, reported a hemopoiesis-inhibition signal, which is reflected in the risk section.

Half-life and storage

Half-life: Unknown. No human or animal pharmacokinetic study exists for Pinealon. Theoretical estimates based on short tripeptide structure suggest plasma half-life of minutes to 1-2 hours. Subcutaneous absorption timeline is uncharacterized. Oral bioavailability is expected to be very low (gastric acid and peptidase degradation of tripeptides) but has not been measured.

Once mixed: Standard peptide reconstitution applies: bacteriostatic water, store refrigerated at 2-8C after reconstitution. Stable approximately 30 days reconstituted. Protect from light. Avoid repeated freeze-thaw. No Pinealon-specific reconstitution sensitivity data exists.

What I noticed, and what people report

Case study

Pinealon: a sleep experiment, written down before the result RunningI published the setup before I knew the answer, so I could not quietly rewrite the question. The two-week read is in.

What people report

Volume of reports: faint. Little real-world record, or mostly noise.

Growing but still thin. Huberman's public endorsement in 2023-2024 seeded a wave of community reports, but the total user base is small compared to compounds like BPC-157 or TB-500. Most English-language discussion is recent and Huberman-catalyzed.

Reports on sleep and vivid dreams are reasonably consistent. Cognitive effects are inconsistent and harder to attribute. The sleep signal is the strongest community thread.

Low-to-moderate. Many community reports involve co-administration with glycine (which has its own strong sleep data), Epitalon, or TRT. Independent single-compound Pinealon reports are rare. Huberman's self-report is the highest-credibility anecdote but it is still an uncontrolled n=1.

Anecdote: the most consistent report is unusually vivid or intense dreams, sometimes described as cinematic. This appears in both the Russian clinical literature (as a minor side effect) and Western community reports.
Anecdote: users report improved sleep depth and subjective morning alertness within 1-2 weeks of starting. Almost universally co-administered with glycine, so attribution is unclear.
Anecdote: some users describe noticeable improvements in focus and word recall during course periods, most often in the 40+ demographic. These reports are impressionistic and not tracked against any baseline.
Anecdote: Huberman said on his podcast that a dose raised his late-night REM from about 1.5 to about 3 hours. He later stopped. This is the single highest-visibility self-report and has driven much of the Western interest.

Reports are anecdote, not proof.

Can you tell if it is working?

Partly trackable

The only honest tracker is REM sleep on a wearable (Oura/WHOOP/Eight Sleep) run as a strict n-of-1, it measures the one claimed endpoint at home, but there is zero human validation and the evidence is D-grade.

Bloodwork

No blood proxy

Nothing on a routine panel confirms this one. Anyone who says otherwise is guessing.

Pinealon (Glu-Asp-Arg / EDR) is a short-peptide bioregulator proposed to act as an intranuclear epigenetic regulator of neuronal gene expression in CNS tissue. Its claimed actions are local and transcriptional, so it produces no systemic analyte that a routine blood panel measures.

Read this before you spend on labs

Routine bloodwork cannot confirm pinealon is working. Its claimed effects are neurocognitive and subjective (memory, headache relief, mood, sleep), and the human evidence is limited to Russian TBI/cerebrasthenia trials that measured symptom and cognitive scales, not blood markers. No LabCorp/Quest analyte moves in a direction that reflects its biological action. Despite the "pineal" name and melatonin-support marketing, there is no controlled human data showing it raises measurable serum or urinary melatonin/6-sulfatoxymelatonin as an efficacy readout, so those are not usable proxies. The single blood finding in the literature is an unreplicated adverse signal (decreased CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells); that is a safety flag requiring specialized flow cytometry, not an efficacy marker, and must not be read as proof of benefit. Any objective anchor lives in validated cognitive/symptom testing, not in blood.

Khavinson, Linkova, Kozhevnikova, Trofimova, EDR Peptide: Possible Mechanism of Gene Expression and Protein Synthesis Regulation Involved in the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer's Disease (Molecules, 2021, 26(1):159), PMC7795577

Other ways to track it

Sleep / wearableIndirect / noisy

Oura Ring, WHOOP, or Eight Sleep, nightly REM minutes as the only claimed endpoint; nocturnal HRV and resting HR tracked ONLY as confound/context (recovery load, illness, alcohol), not as pinealon efficacy signals

A working result would show a sustained rise in nightly REM minutes over weeks versus your own baseline. Judge rolling weekly averages, never single nights, consumer wearables stage REM only moderately well against lab PSG, so night-to-night swings are noise. Do NOT read HRV or resting-HR shifts as the peptide working: those are general recovery metrics with no pinealon-specific claim, useful only to catch confounds (poor nights, illness, alcohol). Ignore any 'deep-sleep' expectation, even the single public anecdote was REM-only, so deep-sleep/SWS is not a claimed endpoint and wearable SWS staging is weaker still. Run it as a clean n-of-1: no glycine, magnesium, or other sleep aids started at the same time (the lone 'REM doubling' anecdote was confounded by concurrent glycine).

Pinealon's headline consumer claim is restorative/REM sleep, and REM is the one claimed endpoint a home wearable estimates, so this is a legitimate n-of-1 outcome check, not a mechanistic proxy. But there is NO human sleep trial: evidence is D-grade (in-vitro/rodent work from a single Russian lineage, a TBI/cognition trial that never measured sleep, and one uncontrolled anecdote). The wearable can track whether the claimed endpoint moves in you, but cannot establish that pinealon caused it.

Collect 2-3 weeks of baseline nights before starting, then track continuously through the cycle and compare weekly rolling averages, never individual nights.How to do it right

Bottom line

Pinealon has no blood proxy and no validated objective biomarker, its mechanism is intranuclear/epigenetic with nothing measurable on a systemic panel, and its human evidence is D-grade (cell and rodent studies plus five small uncontrolled Russian human reports, none measuring sleep, and one uncontrolled REM anecdote). A sleep wearable can track the single thing it claims to change, nightly REM, as a strict n-of-1, but any change is easily confounded by glycine, sleep habits, or seasonality, and consumer REM staging is imprecise. HRV and resting HR are context only, not efficacy signals; deep-sleep, cognition, neuroprotection, and 'melatonin support' claims have no accessible objective readout at all. Treat a positive multi-week n-of-1 REM trend as suggestive, never proof.

Logging baseline vs retest is the whole game. The Truth Tracker is our free log for bloodwork, DEXA, genetics, and wearable data, bring your own numbers.

How to track it

History

First documented human use: No controlled human trial has been completed in the Western peer-reviewed literature. PubMed indexes five small, uncontrolled Russian reports that include Pinealon (2012 to 2016), none measuring sleep. The Khavinson group reports, in a 2020 review, that oral Pinealon alongside standard therapy helped memory and headaches in 72 patients with brain-injury aftereffects. That figure traces to a 2013 review article, not to a trial report, and has no controls, dose or duration that we could verify. None of it has been independently replicated.

1970s-1980sVladimir Khavinson and colleagues at the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology begin developing short peptide bioregulators derived from organ extracts, originally for Soviet military and cosmonaut health programs. Cortexin (polypeptide brain extract) precedes the synthetic tripeptide era.
2000s-2010sThe EDR tripeptide (Glu-Asp-Arg) is isolated and synthesized as a defined compound from the broader Cortexin bioregulator research. Khavinson group publishes foundational in vitro and rodent neuroprotection studies establishing the 'pinealon' name and proposed mechanism.
2011-2017Core preclinical evidence published: ROS suppression in cerebellar cells (2011, PMID 21978084), prenatal rat neuroprotection (2012, PMID 22567179), dendritic spine restoration in Alzheimer's cell model (2017, PMID 28853087). All Khavinson-affiliated. No independent replication.
2015One of five small PubMed-indexed human reports that include Pinealon as one of the tested compounds is published in Advances in Gerontology (PMID 26390612). The 32-patient uncontrolled observational study in elderly patients with polymorbidity and organic brain syndrome found that Pinealon had significant anabolic effects and slowed aging by biological age indicators, but also found significant inhibition of hemopoiesis (decreased CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells in blood). The authors called for additional safety studies. This is not a healthy-adult optimization study. Vesugen, not Pinealon, showed the stronger geroprophylactic effect in this study.
2023-2026Andrew Huberman says on his podcast that he tried Pinealon a few times and that a dose raised his late-night REM from about 1.5 to about 3 hours. He later stopped, saying he did not know enough about it. No change to the underlying evidence grade.

All sources

Khavinson et al. 2011 - Pinealon increases cell viability by suppression of free radical levels (PMID 21978084)(Core in vitro neuroprotection paper. Cerebellar granule cells, neutrophils, PC12 cells. Dose-dependent ROS suppression and ERK modulation. Real study but preclinical only.)
Kraskovskaya et al. 2017 - Tripeptides restore neuronal spines in Alzheimer's disease model (PMID 28853087)(In vitro mouse hippocampal neuron study. EDR (Pinealon) at 200 ng/ml restored mushroom spine count by 71% under amyloid synaptotoxicity. Authors called for further study, not clinical use.)
Arutjunyan et al. 2012 - Pinealon protects rat offspring from prenatal hyperhomocysteinemia (PMID 22567179)(Rodent model, not human. Establishes the neuroprotective and cognitive claims at the animal level. The most cited animal study.)
Silanteva et al. 2019 - Role of mono- and divalent ions in peptide Glu-Asp-Arg-DNA interaction, J Phys Chem B (PMID 30762356)(Molecular mechanism paper. Models how Glu-Asp-Arg interacts with DNA base atoms. Underlies the epigenetic regulatory claim but is computational, not a human gene expression study.)
Meshchaninov et al. 2015 - Effect of synthetic peptides on aging of patients with chronic polymorbidity and organic brain syndrome (PMID 26390612, Advances in Gerontology)(One of five small PubMed-indexed human reports that include Pinealon, and the one with the most detail. 32 patients (18 men, 12 women, ages 41-83), uncontrolled observational design, not a healthy-adult trial. Found anabolic effects and slowed biological aging indicators but also found significant inhibition of hemopoiesis (decreased CD34+ progenitor cells). Authors called for additional safety studies. Vesugen showed stronger effect than Pinealon in this study.)
Nazimko et al. 2012 - Pinealon capsules in locomotive crews, 100 mcg twice daily for 2 weeks (PMID 22708445, Advances in Gerontology)(The only human source with a stated dose. Oral capsule, no controls described; better biological-age indicators reported. Also see Bashkireva 2012 (PMID 23734521) and Myakotnykh 2016 (PMID 28539017).)
Khavinson et al. 2020 - EDR peptide review, Molecules (PMC7795577)(Source of the 72-patient brain-injury statement. It cites a 2013 review (PMID 24738258) whose abstract gives no patient numbers.)
Khavinson et al. 2021 - tripeptides in a mouse Alzheimer's model, Pharmaceuticals (PMID 34071923)(Animal study from the same group.)
Nazimko VA, Morgul EV, Petrova OA, et al. Adv Gerontol 2012;25(1):57-62. PMID 22708445(dose table)
Huberman Lab episode with Dr. Abud Bakri, "Peptides: The Science, Uses & Safety" (June 1, 2026); read from a third-party auto-transcript (podscripts.co), speaker inferred from turn order(dose table)
Huberman Lab episode with Dr. Abud Bakri, "Peptides: The Science, Uses & Safety" (June 1, 2026); read from a third-party auto-transcript (podscripts.co), speaker inferred from turn order(dose table)
Huberman Lab episode with Dr. Abud Bakri, "Peptides: The Science, Uses & Safety" (June 1, 2026); read from a third-party auto-transcript (podscripts.co), speaker inferred from turn order(dose table)
Huberman Lab episode with Dr. Abud Bakri, "Peptides: The Science, Uses & Safety" (June 1, 2026); read from a third-party auto-transcript (podscripts.co), speaker inferred from turn order(dose table)

Not medical advice. Grades reflect the evidence as of the date above and will change as data arrives. Reports from users are anecdote, not proof. Talk to a licensed clinician before you act on anything here.