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Bromantane

Also known as Ladasten, Bromantan, ADK-709, N-(4-bromophenyl)adamantan-2-amine

Not a peptide but a Russian adamantane stimulant, sold beside Semax and Selank on Russian-only trial data.

early-clinical Neuro & cognition research chemical

At a glance

Category
Neuro & cognition
Status
research chemical
Route
oral (tablets)
Half-life
No independently published human pharmacokinetic study that PeptideX has been able to read. Russian sources describe a slow onset over days rather than a stimulant-like acute effect, which is consistent with the 28-day treatment courses used in the clinical studies 3.
Onset
The Russian multicentre study reported an anti-asthenic effect by day 3 of treatment 3
Molecular weight
306.24 g/mol (C16H20BrN) 7

Bromantane is not a peptide. It is a small adamantane derivative, related structurally to amantadine, included here because it is sold by the same vendors as Semax, Selank and Noopept and turns up in the same searches. It was developed in the Soviet Union and later Russia as an 'actoprotector' - a Russian pharmacological category with no Western equivalent, covering agents intended to sustain physical and mental performance under stress. It has been registered in Russia as Ladasten for asthenic disorders. It has never been approved by the FDA or the EMA, and it does not appear as an intervention in any study registered on ClinicalTrials.gov: a search of the registry in July 2026 returns zero studies 6. It came to Western attention in 1996, when several athletes at the Atlanta Olympics tested positive for a then-unidentified substance that was subsequently characterised as bromantane 1.

Doping status: Prohibited in competition. The 2026 Prohibited List names Bromantan in section S6.A, non-specified stimulants; S6 applies in competition only

Checked against the WADA 2026 Prohibited List. For a specific product and country, Global DRO is the lookup athletes are expected to use — the List names substances, not brand names.

This is a short entry. There is little or no published research on this compound, so there is correspondingly little to report. Empty dosing or reconstitution sections mean no credible figures exist — not that they were left out.

Mechanism of action

Bromantane is described in the Russian literature as an indirect dopaminergic agent rather than a releasing agent or reuptake inhibitor. Rather than acting on the transporter, it is reported to increase the expression of genes for tyrosine hydroxylase and aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase in the hypothalamus and other brain regions, thereby increasing dopamine synthesis over hours to days 4. Work published outside Russia is consistent with an effect on dopaminergic neurotransmission and on hippocampal synaptic plasticity in rats 8. Its dual description as both a stimulant and an anxiolytic - unusual, and the basis of the Russian clinical claim in asthenia - is attributed to this combination of slow dopaminergic facilitation without acute catecholamine release.

Two caveats belong immediately alongside that account. First, an agent that works by increasing the transcription of dopamine-synthesising enzymes has a slower and less reversible profile than a classical stimulant, and what happens to that system after months of daily use has not been studied. Second, almost all of the mechanistic work is Russian-language, published in a small number of domestic journals, and has not been independently replicated abroad.

What the research shows

Russian clinical trials of bromantane exist and should not be dismissed - but they cannot be verified from outside Russia and they would not, as reported, satisfy a Western regulator. They are published almost entirely in Russian-language domestic journals, several with no named authors, generally without registration on any public trial registry, and without independent replication. There is essentially no Western clinical literature at all: the compound's Western footprint is a 1997 Lancet letter identifying it as a doping agent 1. That is the honest position, and it is neither 'well studied' nor 'unstudied'.

Research in humans

Two clinical publications are worth naming specifically. Neznamov and colleagues (2009) reported a randomised blind study in patients with neurasthenia comparing ladasten with placebo: a wash-out period, 28 days of monotherapy, and a final week of placebo, concluding that ladasten reduced the main symptoms of asthenic syndrome faster and more completely than placebo and produced no withdrawal syndrome 2. A 2010 multicentre study across 28 Russian clinical centres analysed 728 patients with asthenic disorders on 50-100 mg daily for 28 days, reporting responder rates of 76.0 per cent on CGI-S and 90.8 per cent on CGI-I, an effect visible by day 3 and persisting a month after withdrawal, with adverse effects in 3 per cent of patients 3. The second of these is the larger by an order of magnitude and is also the weaker design: it is an uncontrolled, open-label observational study reporting responder rates against no comparator, with no listed authors on the PubMed record. Neither trial appears in any international registry, neither has been replicated outside Russia, and PeptideX has not been able to read the full text of either in English.

Animal and lab research

The rodent literature is substantial and dates mostly from the 1990s: pharmaco-EEG analysis, effects on the dopaminergic and serotonergic systems of the rat brain, work capacity under load, thermoprotection during overheating, and an unusual line of work describing immunostimulant activity. There are also toxicology and reproductive studies - acute toxicity, a two-month neurological course study, effects on postnatal development of rat pups, and studies of reproductive function in male rats. Nearly all of it is in Russian-language journals from a small number of institutions 4.

Caveats. The core problem is verifiability, not implausibility. A reader outside Russia cannot obtain the protocols, cannot inspect randomisation or blinding, cannot check whether the trials were registered, and cannot read most of the reports at all. The largest study is uncontrolled. Publication bias in a national literature around a domestically registered product is a reasonable concern and cannot be measured. Independent replication has not happened in thirty years. Against that, the studies are real, they are indexed in PubMed, they report specific designs and specific numbers, and the compound has genuinely been on the Russian market - so treating the evidence as if it did not exist would be as inaccurate as treating it as established. What can be said with confidence is narrow: bromantane has been given to human beings in clinical settings, at 50-100 mg daily for about a month, without a signal of serious harm being reported in those settings.

What it is used for

  • Registered in Russia as Ladasten for asthenic disorders and neurasthenia 23
  • Sold internationally as a 'research chemical' or nootropic for fatigue, motivation and anxiety, alongside the Russian peptides Semax and Selank
  • Historically, a doping agent: the substance detected in athlete samples at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and characterised in a 1997 Lancet letter 1
  • Studied in Russia as an actoprotector for maintaining physical work capacity under heat and load 4

Dosing

Dose
50-100 mg per day, the dose range used across 728 patients in the Russian multicentre study
Frequency
once daily in the published Russian studies
Route
oral
Duration
28 days in both published clinical studies; no longer course has been reported
  • The 50-100 mg daily range comes from the Russian multicentre study, in which 728 patients were treated for 28 days 3; the randomised placebo-controlled study used the same 28-day course 2. Both figures are descriptive of what was administered to a domestically registered product's patients. They are not advice, and they are not doses any Western regulator has evaluated.
  • Both published studies ran for 28 days and stopped. There is no published information on continuous use beyond a month, and given a mechanism that works by upregulating dopamine-synthesising enzymes 4, the absence of long-term data is a real gap rather than a formality.
  • Material sold internationally is a research chemical of unverified identity and purity, not the registered Russian tablet the studies used. The two should not be treated as the same product.
  • Effect onset is reported as days rather than minutes 3. Escalating the dose because nothing has happened within an hour is a misreading of what the compound is.

These figures describe what the literature and published protocols report. They are not advice and not a dosing instruction.

Protocols

Ladasten for asthenic disorders (Russian multicentre study)

published trial

Source: Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova, 2010 - 28 clinical centres in Russia, 728 patients analysed; open-label and uncontrolled, no authors listed on the record

28 days50-100 mg ladasten (bromantane) daily by mouth

Reproduced because it is the largest published human exposure and the source of the only dose figure that comes from a clinical setting rather than a vendor. It is not a controlled trial: responder rates of 76.0 per cent on CGI-S and 90.8 per cent on CGI-I were measured against no comparator, in a population with a condition that responds substantially to placebo.

Online nootropic use (user-reported)

user protocol — not validated

Source: Nootropic and peptide forum reports and vendor labelling

This is not a validated schedule. It is a pattern that circulates among users and sellers, reproduced because it is what people actually follow — not because it has been tested. No trial established these doses, this interval or this duration, and nobody is checking what is in the vial. Treat every number below as an assertion, not a finding.

Most commonly reported daily amount50-100 mg once daily, mirroring the Russian tablet dose
Reported upper endup to about 150 mg daily, or intermittent dosing a few days per week
Reported cycleanything from occasional single doses to continuous daily use for weeks or months

The oral amounts that circulate online sit around the 50-100 mg the Russian studies used 3, but the material is unverified research-chemical powder or capsules rather than the registered Ladasten tablet, so the same number does not describe the same product. Two recurring confusions appear in the reports. First, some users treat bromantane as an acute stimulant and redose within the day when nothing is felt in the first hour, which misreads a compound whose effect is reported to build over days 3. Second, there is no agreement on whether to dose daily or intermittently, and no published basis for either, because no study ran beyond the 28-day course. There is no human data on continuous use past a month, and none at all on the multi-compound stacks bromantane is commonly combined into. None of these figures has a safety or pharmacokinetic basis; they are what users report doing.

Schedules are reproduced as their source states them. Units, IU and milligrams explains why the figures are not interchangeable between products.

Reconstitution

An oral tablet in its registered Russian form; sold internationally as loose powder or capsules. Nothing to reconstitute.

Safety

Side effects

  • In the Russian multicentre study, adverse effects were reported in 3 per cent of 728 patients, with treatment discontinued in 0.8 per cent and no serious adverse effects recorded 3 - a low rate reported by an uncontrolled study of a domestically registered product, which is a weak basis for reassurance
  • Insomnia and overstimulation if taken late in the day, consistent with a dopaminergic mechanism
  • Irritability and restlessness at higher doses
  • No systematic safety data outside the Russian studies, and nothing at all on use beyond 28 days
  • Rodent work includes acute toxicity, two-month neurological course, reproductive and postnatal development studies 4; these have not been reproduced or independently reviewed outside Russia

Do not use if

  • Any athlete competing in a sport subject to anti-doping rules - Bromantan is named in section S6.A of the WADA Prohibited List and is prohibited in competition 5
  • Pregnancy and breastfeeding: no adequate human data
  • Children and adolescents: no data
  • Existing psychosis or bipolar disorder: a compound that increases dopamine synthesis is a foreseeable risk in those conditions and has not been studied in them
  • Concurrent dopaminergic medication, including MAO inhibitors, levodopa and stimulants - the combination is unstudied

Interactions

Not systematically studied. The mechanism - increased expression of dopamine-synthesising enzymes 4 - makes additive effects with stimulants, dopamine agonists, levodopa and MAO inhibitors plausible in principle, and none of these combinations has been examined in any published human study. No interaction data exist for the combinations bromantane is commonly stacked into by online users.

Sources