Selank is a synthetic analogue of the immunomodulatory peptide tuftsin, stabilised with a proline-glycine-proline extension, developed in Russia and registered there as an anxiolytic.

It presents the same difficulty as Semax and deserves the same care. Clinical trials exist and underpin its registration, but they are published largely in Russian-language journals not indexed where Western reviewers look, with methods that are difficult to evaluate at a distance. Confident claims in either direction are usually being made by people who have not read the underlying work.

Proposed mechanisms include modulation of GABAergic signalling, effects on the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, changes to monoamine metabolism, and immunomodulatory activity inherited from tuftsin.

It is described as anxiolytic without the sedation, dependence or withdrawal associated with benzodiazepines, which is the basis of its registered use. That claim rests on the same literature.

Early clinical and difficult to appraise. Russian trials report anxiolytic effects in generalised anxiety and adjustment disorders, comparable in some reports to benzodiazepines without sedation.

Independent replication outside Russia is essentially absent, and the accessible trials are small.

For cognitive enhancement in healthy people, which drives most community interest, there is no adequately powered controlled evidence in any language. As with Semax, "the evidence sits in a literature I cannot appraise" is a different statement from "there is no evidence", and collapsing them is its own error.

Reported tolerability in Russian clinical use is good, and the intranasal route produces local irritation as the main complaint. Years of registered use provide some real-world observation.

The limits are real: little independent safety data, no long-term data in healthy users, and no characterised interaction profile with psychiatric medication despite proposed effects on GABAergic and monoamine systems.

Registered in Russia and some neighbouring countries as an anxiolytic. Not approved in the United States, the European Union, or most other jurisdictions. Sold internationally as a research chemical.