Pinealon is the tripeptide Glu-Asp-Arg (also written EDR), one of the short synthetic bioregulators developed at the St.
The 2 mg daily for 10 days row is a recorded bioregulator convention, not a validated cognitive-treatment regimen. This is educational source context, not a protocol or recommendation.
There is no regulator-approved starting dose for this research use. A low-looking number is not automatically safe.
This is the range represented in the in-app protocol library. It describes the source record; it does not validate the regimen.
Higher exposure is not established as more effective. Human pharmacokinetic and long-term safety data may be absent.
Drug amount and device markings are different quantities. The calculator converts mass into volume, syringe units, or pen clicks.
The cadence represented by the recorded calculator presets.
Published experiments may use a different route, formulation, timing, or population and should not be treated as interchangeable.
No single schedule has been validated across products or research contexts.
Human dose-ranging, pharmacokinetic, and long-term safety trials are not established.
Keep cold, dry, and protected from light according to the manufacturer certificate or validated lab SOP.
Use sterile technique, refrigerate as validated, and avoid repeated freeze-thaw cycles.
Record lot, concentration, preparation date, and the identity/purity documentation used by the lab.
What published studies and recent community write-ups report about amounts, timing and course length. 1 clinical, 4 preclinical and 4 community-reported rows, each linked to its source. These are descriptions of what others report, not instructions, and nothing here is medical advice.
| Context | Dose | Frequency | Route | Course | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical1 row | |||||
| Occupational study in locomotive crewsRussian locomotive-brigade workers (train drivers and assistants) | 100 mcg per capsule, 200 mcg per day | Twice daily | Oral capsule | 2 weeksNone described | Advances in Gerontology (PubMed)2012 |
| The authors report improved biological-age indices and better adaptive-reaction measures after the two-week course. The abstract gives no sample size, no randomisation and no blinding, and this is the single human study that states a Pinealon dose, which is where the widely repeated 200 mcg per day figure comes from. | |||||
| Preclinical4 rows | |||||
| Preclinical: oxidative stress in cultured cellsRat cerebellar granule cells, neutrophils and PC12 pheochromocytoma cells | 10 nM to 500 nM (100 nM was enough to prevent one oxidative insult completely) | Single exposure, with a 24-hour incubation for the cell-cycle work | In vitro, added to the medium | Not applicableNot applicable | Rejuvenation Research (PubMed)2011 |
| Pinealon limited reactive oxygen species accumulation and necrotic cell death under receptor-dependent and receptor-independent oxidative stress, delayed ERK 1/2 activation at 10 nM and shifted the PC12 cell cycle at 100 nM. Because the antioxidant effect stopped increasing between 100 and 500 nM while cell death kept falling, the authors argue the peptide also acts directly on the genome; these are nanomolar culture concentrations that do not convert into an injected human dose. | |||||
| Preclinical: prenatal hyperhomocysteinemia in ratsPregnant Wistar rats loaded with dietary methionine, with their offspring assessed at 10 and 45 days | 10 mcg/kg per day, dissolved in 0.9% saline | Once daily | Intraperitoneal injection to the pregnant dams | 5 days, given before the methionine loadingNot applicable | International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (PubMed Central)2012 |
| Offspring of treated dams performed better on spatial orientation and learning in the Morris water maze and their cerebellar neurons showed less reactive oxygen species accumulation and fewer necrotic cells. The authors say they chose this dose from their earlier antihypoxic experiments rather than from any dose-finding work. | |||||
| Preclinical: dendritic spines in an Alzheimer mouse model5xFAD transgenic mice and wild-type controls, treated from 2 to 4 months of age | 400 mcg/kg | Once daily | Intraperitoneal injection | 2 months, before electrophysiology and microscopyNone | Pharmaceuticals (PubMed Central)2021 |
| EDR and the related KED peptide prevented the loss of dendritic spines in the transgenic mice, while the increase in neuroplasticity measures with KED was only a trend. The authors paired this with docking work placing EDR binding sites in the promoter regions of CASP3, NES, GAP43, APOE, SOD2 and PPAR genes; the paper carries a 2025 erratum. | |||||
| Preclinical: aged human neurons made from donor fibroblastsInduced cortical neurons reprogrammed from skin fibroblasts of three women aged 61, 66 and 68 | 10 mcg/mL | Added daily | In vitro, added to the culture medium | 10 daysNot applicable | International Journal of Molecular Sciences (PubMed Central)2024 |
| EDR increased the number of dendritic processes by 28% and branching points by 65% and was the only one of the three peptides tested to reduce oxidative DNA damage, while mitochondrial and lysosomal activity and the senescence marker p16 did not change. This is a small cell-culture study from the same research network, not evidence of an effect in a person. | |||||
| Community-reported4 rows | |||||
| Research-vial course from a 20 mg vial | 1.0 mg on days 1-5, 1.5 mg on days 6-14, 2.0 mg on days 15-20 (15, 22.5 and 30 units at 6.67 mg/mL); oral capsule figures also given | Once daily | Subcutaneous from a 20 mg vial in 3.0 mL of bacteriostatic water; oral capsules as the alternative | 10-20 days, extendable to 28 days in some sources2-3 months between cycles, 2-3 cycles per year | Community resource2026 |
| This August 2026 guide presents its titration as research-context structure rather than a recommendation and notes that community sources also discuss 5-10 mg per day. It cites a cell study in which EDR at 200 ng/mL increased mushroom dendritic spines by 71% in an amyloid-toxicity model, and its oral figures of 20 mg per day do not match the roughly 100 mcg Russian capsule. | |||||
| Milligram community convention | 5-10 mg per day (50-100 units from a 10 mg vial in 1 mL) | Once daily, in the morning | Subcutaneous | 10-20 daysRepeated a few times a year; 1-3 courses described as convention rather than evidence | Community resource2026 |
| This June 2026 guide is explicit that the 5-10 mg figure comes from the single 10 mg vial size vendors sell rather than from any dose-response work, and that the culture concentrations and body-weight rodent doses behind the compound do not convert into it. It records injection-site irritation as the only commonly mentioned complaint and says the human side-effect profile is unknown. | |||||
| Provenance audit of the circulating figures | 200 mcg per day as the only figure with a published human source; 20 mg in 3 mL makes 200 mcg equal 3 units | Twice daily in the source study | Oral capsule in the human study; the injectable regimen has no published human source | 14 days in the one human study; 10-20 days as the school's conventionOnce or twice a year in the bioregulator tradition, never tested | Community resource2026 |
| This July 2026 analysis traces the ubiquitous 200 mcg per day figure to the 2012 locomotive-crew study, points out that it was an oral dose being applied to injections nobody has validated, and notes that no study has compared a 10-day course with a 20-day or 40-day course or justified any washout. It also stresses that Pinealon is EDR and not the tetrapeptide Epithalon, whose telomerase findings do not transfer. | |||||
| Route comparison and community ranges | 100-500 mcg subcutaneously, or 100-200 mcg intranasally | 1-3 times daily (subcutaneous) or 1-2 times daily (intranasal) | Subcutaneous injection or intranasal | 10-20 daysNot specified | Community resource2026 |
| This April 2026 review records the community ranges alongside the warning that they are extrapolated from the Russian literature with no controlled dose-finding study in any species, no pharmacokinetic data and no published intranasal human data. It describes an expectation of rapid breakdown by peptidases, which no measurement has confirmed or refuted. | |||||
Injectable protocols start at the bottom of their range, around 1 mg a day from a reconstituted 20 mg vial, or 5 mg a day in the guides that work from a 10 mg vial. Oral courses simply begin at the capsule dose with no ramp.
The course continues daily, with one guide stepping to 1.5 mg and then 2 mg and others holding a fixed 5-10 mg, usually taken in the morning. Nothing is monitored and no source describes a reason to change the dose mid-course.
Courses stop at 10-20 days, occasionally 28, on the Khavinson premise that gene-expression changes outlast the peptide in blood. The only human regimen with a published dose ran 14 days, which sits in the middle of that range.
A 2-3 month break and two or three courses a year is the standard pattern quoted, inherited from the bioregulator school rather than derived for this peptide. No study has compared course lengths, repeat intervals or washout periods.
Animal and cell work used 10 mcg/kg injected into rats, 400 mcg/kg injected into mice for two months, and 10 mcg/mL added to human neurons for 10 days. None of those exposures corresponds to the milligram daily injections community guides describe.
Plus 4 community resources (dosing guides, forum threads and vendor write-ups), reported above but not linked.
Pinealon is the tripeptide Glu-Asp-Arg (also written EDR), one of the short synthetic bioregulators developed at the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology under Vladimir Khavinson and assigned in that scheme to the pineal gland and brain. Its developers report that it limits reactive oxygen species and cell death in neurons under oxidative or low-oxygen stress, that it binds DNA and alters expression of genes such as CASP3, GAP43, SOD2 and APOE, and that it protects dendritic spines in Alzheimer models. The human record is thin: the one study that states a regimen gave 100 mcg twice daily by capsule for two weeks to Russian locomotive crews and reported better composite biological-age scores, with no control group, no randomisation and publication in Russian. No trial is registered, no regulator has approved it, and it is sold as Russian capsules of about 100 mcg and as 10 or 20 mg research vials, a format that does not appear anywhere in the human literature.
These themes describe recurring questions in published research. They are not claims of effectiveness or recommendations for use.
Cell and rodent studies examine oxidative stress, apoptosis, and neuronal survival.
Small open-label reports examine memory and attention after brain injury.
Regional studies combine Pinealon with other interventions in older populations.
Laboratory work proposes short-peptide interactions with transcription and chromatin.
Study models remain visible so laboratory and animal findings are not mistaken for established human outcomes.
Rat-offspring research reported changes in oxidative stress and neuronal cell death.
Published clinical observations lack proper randomization, blinding, and independent replication.
Most work comes from the originating St Petersburg research group.
These amount records are independent from vial strength, reconstitution volume and measuring device. A recorded source is not the same as study backing, and these values are not recommendations.
Sequence, synonyms and registry identifiers as recorded in PubChem, the National Library of Medicine's open chemistry database. Formula, mass and CAS number are summarized at the top of the page.
Glu-Asp-Arg
Pinealon, EDR peptide, Glu-Asp-Arg, H-Glu-Asp-Arg-OH, L-Glutamyl-L-aspartyl-L-arginine, CHEBI:156374, HY-P4052, Pinealon acetate salt form
QPRZKNOOOBWXSU-CIUDSAMLSA-N
Developed as a short “brain bioregulator” peptide
(4S)-4-amino-5-[[(2S)-3-carboxy-1-[[(1S)-1-carboxy-4-(diaminomethylideneamino)butyl]amino]-1-oxopropan-2-yl]amino]-5-oxopentanoic acid
2 curated references, each with its journal, year and study model, plus 4 community resources reported but not linked.