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What's the deal with Russian drug design 🤔

negrogesic

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Russia has produced a large number of strange psychotherapeutics with complex and poorly understood mechanisms of actions.

Is their design targeted towards these ligands or activities (like BDNF promotion, etc.) or do they just create a ton of these and test them on animals (or perhaps Ukrainians) and determine the activity. And the early use of psychiatric peptides seems either unnecessarily complex or very advanced.

Examples of compounds with such vague activities for instance are fabomotizole and mebicar but there are countless. Perhaps these weird russian drugs are designed to treat the unique sadness that only a cold Soviet winter can produce:




Fabomotizole

Its mechanism of action remains poorly defined however, with GABAergic, NGF- and BDNF-release-promoting, MT1 receptor agonism, MT3 receptor antagonism, and sigma agonism suggested as potential mechanisms. Fabomotizole was shown to inhibit MAO-A reversibly and there might be also some involvement with serotonin receptors.

Mebicar

Mebicar has an effect on the structure of limbic-reticular activity, particularly on hypothalamus emotional zone, as well as on all 4 basic neuromediator systems – γ aminobutyric acid (GABA), choline, serotonin and adrenergic activity. Mebicar decreases the brain noradrenaline level, exerts no effect on the dopaminergic systems, increases the brain serotonin level, and does not elicit cholinolytic action.[3]


*(This question came to me after i took 20mg of fabomotizole about an hour ago and it did seem to have definite anxiolytic activity, really damping down some amphetamine induced anxiety.)
 
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From a 1980 Russian article on mebicar:

"Under group interaction in cats, a new Soviet tranquilizer mebicar eliminates fear-alarm induced by stimulatin of the emotiogenic zone of the hypothalamus."

Val'dman, A V et al. Characteristics of the psychotropic spectrum of action of mebicar. Biulleten' eksperimental'noi biologii i meditsiny, 1980
 
Interesting i would like to know more. Any link to the article? Is it in russian? Possibly basic translation? Im so bad at some of these terms but what exactly do they mean when they say "stimulatin of the emotiogenic zone of the hypothalamus"
 
Interesting i would like to know more. Any link to the article? Is it in russian? Possibly basic translation? Im so bad at some of these terms but what exactly do they mean when they say "stimulatin of the emotiogenic zone of the hypothalamus"

I dunno but I've long been searching for something to stimulate the emotiogenic zone of my hypothalamus 😌. Who knows what they mean by that, maybe they are referring to the TMN (tuberomammillary nucleus) or more likely the lateral hypothalamus and associated orexin system

Also i gave a citation but here it is:


In any event you know what they say, in Soviet Russia you don't do drugs, drugs do you.

*Still my question remains, what is their drug discovery model? Is it haphazard? Practically based? For instance, Mebicar is simply the industrial chemical glycoluril with a bunch of methyl groups on it.
 
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Idk, but I do know that, during much of the Cold War, the only antipsychotic medicines the Russians could reliably source were Thorazine (chlorpromazine) and Haldol (haloperidol).
 
Perhaps that is harder to do with drugs that are outside common "families" or have unclear methods of action or odd side effects - just speculating on that one.

What, like with SSRIs that cause profound sexual dysfunction for so many who use them? That's an odd side effect and that's one of the side effects alone that could theoretically disqualify them from being used in mainstream medicine. The fact that they can be effective in treating depression might be considered irrelevant - much like the risks of addiction and dependence might be the reason opioids are not used to treat depression even though they are extremely effective in doing so.
 
There is a very interesting documentary I think it's BBC horizon on the use of phages instead of antibiotics and there is also one on the use of fentanyl analogues by the Russian spetznaz also BBC horizon

Here's the fent docu
 
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I want some of that Russian SP-117. So useable in so many contexts.
The truth serum? Yeah, lol. Dissociatives can work too as one, if you take out the psychotomimesis. MXE was pretty reliable as a truth drug if used correctly (requires serious psychological skills which I lacked).
Any info about what it is? A barb??
 
The truth serum? Yeah, lol. Dissociatives can work too as one, if you take out the psychotomimesis. MXE was pretty reliable as a truth drug if used correctly (requires serious psychological skills which I lacked).
Any info about what it is? A barb??
I’ve searched quite a bit for information on it but found nothing about what drug class it is. Definitely seems to exist though and definitely seems to have been used by the Russkis quite a bit.
 
wonder if it's just a barbiturate

(or perhaps Ukrainians)
Hey! I resemble that remark! (why has nobody given me Russian mystery drugs)

Meldonium
440px-Meldonium.svg.png

nothing like a hydrazine to make you raise an eyebrow about toxicology. apparently WADA thinks it's a performance enhancer. (they think THC is too I guess) so they banned it.

Mesocarb
520px-Sidnocarb.svg.png

lookit all that wierd stuff on the end of that amphetamine. and a mesoionic sydnone imine to boot. you don't see those every day.
 
wonder if it's just a barbiturate


Hey! I resemble that remark! (why has nobody given me Russian mystery drugs)

Meldonium
440px-Meldonium.svg.png

nothing like a hydrazine to make you raise an eyebrow about toxicology. apparently WADA thinks it's a performance enhancer. (they think THC is too I guess) so they banned it.

Mesocarb
520px-Sidnocarb.svg.png

lookit all that wierd stuff on the end of that amphetamine. and a mesoionic sydnone imine to boot. you don't see those every day.

Yeah mesocarb has some uniquely Soviet indications:

 
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