Cerebrolysin vs Cortexin
Cerebrolysin and Cortexin are the two flagship animal-derived multi-component neuropeptide preparations in clinical use across Eastern European and Russian medicine. Both are complex peptide-amino-acid mixtures derived from brain tissue by controlled proteolytic digestion, both are used clinically for stroke recovery and vascular dementia, and both are unlicensed in the UK. Their differences — source tissue, route, and clinical positioning — matter for research-context selection.
At a glance
| Cerebrolysin | Cortexin | |
|---|---|---|
| Source tissue | Porcine brain (whole-brain digest) | Bovine cerebral cortex (cortex-specific extract) |
| Manufacturer | Ever Neuro Pharma (Austria) | Geropharm (Russia) |
| Primary route | Intravenous infusion | Intramuscular injection |
| Approved indications | Stroke, vascular dementia, AD, TBI | Broader: adult neurology + paediatric perinatal CNS injury, developmental delays, epilepsy adjunct |
| Evidence base | Cochrane systematic-review coverage; CASTA trial; multiple RCTs | Substantial Russian clinical trial body; no Cochrane-level Western coverage |
| Adult clinical use | Stroke recovery, vascular dementia, TBI | Stroke recovery, vascular dementia, TBI, post-encephalitic recovery |
| Paediatric clinical use | Not routinely approved paediatric | Approved paediatric indications — perinatal HIE, developmental delays |
| Typical course | 10–20 daily doses, IV or IM | 10 daily doses, IM |
| UK status | Not licensed | Not licensed |
| Evidence tier | A (Cochrane meta-analyses) | B (Russian clinical + approved paediatric use) |
What they share
Common mechanistic ground
Both preparations are multi-component peptide-amino-acid mixtures that produce pleiotropic neurotrophic effects. Both mimic aspects of BDNF, NGF, GDNF, and CNTF signalling at cognate receptors without being any single neurotrophin. Both show anti-apoptotic effects in ischaemic and traumatic injury models, both modulate microglial activation and reduce neuroinflammatory cytokines, and both are used clinically as adjuncts to standard-of-care rehabilitation in stroke and dementia indications.
The pharmacological overlap is substantial enough that comparative trials in vascular dementia have reported broadly similar cognitive outcomes on standard rating scales — the differences are as much in tolerability, practical administration, and clinical indication footprint as in fundamental pharmacology.
Where they differ