Here’s a paper discussing how a small molecule which mimics BDNF is potentially a useful as a Traumatic Brain Injury treatment because it can get across the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). So, yeah, you shouldn’t expect very much BDNF to get across the BBB. But broken pieces of BDNF could potentially have still functional fragments, and because they are smaller, more easily cross the BBB. But yeah, overall the Cerebrolysin situation seems super sketchy to me.
I do however think that there is potential for figuring out drugs that could potentially have useful BDNF effects in the brain. Of course, too much of a good thing is also bad. Too much BDNF can cause issues in the brain, potentially causing neurons to grow in harmful not-easily-reversible ways, or to attempt to grow but actually stress themselves out and die, etc.
If I were going to look into Cerebrolysin and the anecdotal reports of its effects, I’d start by asking what things have been proven NOT to be in it. Some signalling molecules, particularly hormones, are very physically robust and good at spreading all throughout the body. Much more so than BDNF. Testosterone for instance. And that’s something you’d expect to cause someone to feel energetic and confident… which would lead to positive anecdotal reports of general efficacy.
If pig testosterone is what you want though, it’d be a lot safer to just cook and eat some pig testicles...
https://journals.lww.com/nrronline/fulltext/2017/12010/Therapeutic_potential_of_brain_derived.2.aspx
Here’s a paper discussing how a small molecule which mimics BDNF is potentially a useful as a Traumatic Brain Injury treatment because it can get across the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). So, yeah, you shouldn’t expect very much BDNF to get across the BBB. But broken pieces of BDNF could potentially have still functional fragments, and because they are smaller, more easily cross the BBB. But yeah, overall the Cerebrolysin situation seems super sketchy to me.
I do however think that there is potential for figuring out drugs that could potentially have useful BDNF effects in the brain. Of course, too much of a good thing is also bad. Too much BDNF can cause issues in the brain, potentially causing neurons to grow in harmful not-easily-reversible ways, or to attempt to grow but actually stress themselves out and die, etc.
If I were going to look into Cerebrolysin and the anecdotal reports of its effects, I’d start by asking what things have been proven NOT to be in it. Some signalling molecules, particularly hormones, are very physically robust and good at spreading all throughout the body. Much more so than BDNF. Testosterone for instance. And that’s something you’d expect to cause someone to feel energetic and confident… which would lead to positive anecdotal reports of general efficacy.
If pig testosterone is what you want though, it’d be a lot safer to just cook and eat some pig testicles...