Transcriptly

How Pinealon Might Improve Sleep & Cognitive Function | Dr. Abud Bakri & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Huberman Lab Clips11:00Added Aug 31, 2026

Dr. Abud Bakri and Dr. Andrew Huberman discuss the peptide Pinealon (EDR), highlighting its ability to significantly increase REM sleep and improve cognitive...

Watch on YouTube →
Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

Transcript format

  1. Pinealon & REM Sleep Effects

  2. 00:00Let's talk about pinealon.
  3. 00:01Yeah,
  4. 00:01pinealon is one that most people
  5. 00:03probably haven't heard of.
  6. 00:05I'll just go on record saying I've tried
  7. 00:06it a few times or more. I don't take it
  8. 00:08regularly, but I tried it before sleep.
  9. 00:10Yep.
  10. 00:11If I take it at the beginning of the
  11. 00:12night, it reduces my deep slowwave sleep
  12. 00:16and gives me far more REM across the
  13. 00:18night. Not a great situation.
  14. 00:20Yep.
  15. 00:20Great situation is if I go to sleep, get
  16. 00:23my usual ration of deep sleep. If I
  17. 00:25happen to wake up in the middle of the
  18. 00:26night to use the restroom once or so,
  19. 00:28not uncommon, if I do a very small
  20. 00:30injection of pinealon at that point, the
  21. 00:33one and a half hours of REM that I would
  22. 00:36get in the final hours of my sleep, now
  23. 00:38I'm getting three hours in the same
  24. 00:40amount of sleep. It's just a higher
  25. 00:41fraction of REM. Yep.
  26. 00:42Sometimes wake up feeling a little
  27. 00:43groggy, but it is a whole other life to
  28. 00:47get that much REM. Don't do it
  29. 00:49regularly. It's not, you know, I would
  30. 00:50say maybe three times a month, but
  31. 00:52here's the interesting thing. It
  32. 00:54improves my percentage of REM on all the
  33. 00:58other nights in between those three
  34. 00:59injections.
  35. 01:00So I'm coming clean here.
  36. 01:01Lingering effects.
  37. 01:02Very cool. You're interested in pinealon
  38. 01:04for a whole other set of reasons. But
  39. 01:06first of all, what is pinealon and where
  40. 01:08does it act? Does it have a known

  41. History Of Pinealon

  42. 01:09receptor?
  43. 01:09No known receptor. So pinealon is a
  44. 01:11tripeptide edr discovered by the
  45. 01:13mentioned of Dr. Vladimir Cavinson. He's
  46. 01:16a Soviet researcher that comes out of
  47. 01:18this Soviet era research to make
  48. 01:20soldiers, astronauts, and pilots uh
  49. 01:23better. There's concern that the US
  50. 01:25might be using lasers to to shoot at
  51. 01:26soldiers. So, the Soviet Union um tasks
  52. 01:29him with identifying peptides to defend
  53. 01:32soldiers, their eyes, and then they're
  54. 01:34aging because what would happen is
  55. 01:35they'd be in a submarine for a few
  56. 01:37months, there'd be a nuclear sub, and
  57. 01:38they'd they'd come back to shore, and
  58. 01:40they'd be like, you know, these
  59. 01:41submariners, let's call them, would look
  60. 01:4310, 20 years older. also happens to
  61. 01:45astronauts.
  62. 01:46Yes. So then the same the same thing as
  63. 01:47the astronauts are coming back they're
  64. 01:48they're aged. So Vladimir Cavson is
  65. 01:50looking at this and he's like hey
  66. 01:51there's there's got to be a solution for
  67. 01:53this. There's been literature about
  68. 01:55using extracts of other tissues notably
  69. 01:57the pineal gland and the thymus from you
  70. 02:00know late 1800s till this this 1970s uh
  71. 02:04point that we're you know starting our
  72. 02:05story. And he starts grounding up these
  73. 02:08um extracts and injecting it into these
  74. 02:10people and then undoing a lot of these
  75. 02:12aging effects through pineal extracts
  76. 02:14and thymus extracts because these what
  77. 02:16do these soldiers have? They had very
  78. 02:18bad circadian rhythmicity. So they they
  79. 02:20can't couldn't sleep properly. They had
  80. 02:22terrible immunity. They'd get sick
  81. 02:23often. They'd be uh have autoimmune
  82. 02:26problems. All these conditions that come
  83. 02:27with it. And then they were able to undo
  84. 02:29this using these organ extracts. So
  85. 02:32Vladimir Cavson takes it a step further.
  86. 02:34He looks like, hey, what's causing this
  87. 02:36effect in these in these tissues? Like
  88. 02:38people have been injecting pineal glands
  89. 02:39in different research models or taking
  90. 02:41out pineal glands from rats from the
  91. 02:421800s onwards. He finds peptides in
  92. 02:45these extracts. He's like, "Huh, I
  93. 02:47wonder if these effects are from the
  94. 02:48peptides, not from this the gland
  95. 02:50itself." So then he sequences from the
  96. 02:53pineal gland epialon and from the thymus
  97. 02:56gland a couple different peptides vyon
  98. 02:59thyogen cristtogen that you'll be
  99. 03:00hearing about in the next few years that
  100. 03:02on their own do a lot of the effects
  101. 03:04that the whole extract would would do.
  102. 03:06Now you're talking about epialon but
  103. 03:07pinealon and epilon
  104. 03:09is not from the pineal gland
  105. 03:10is not from the pineal gland
  106. 03:11even though everyone
  107. 03:12no I think it's called that because
  108. 03:13there's there's as far as I understand
  109. 03:15please correct me if I'm wrong there are
  110. 03:17animal data suggesting that pinealon can
  111. 03:20help either regenerate or enhance the
  112. 03:22the general functioning of pinealytes so

  113. Differentiating Pinealon From Epithalon

  114. 03:25it's having an effect on the pineal when
  115. 03:26c like you take cultured pineal glands
  116. 03:28like little pi gland you put in a dish
  117. 03:30and you dissociate the cells or keep it
  118. 03:32you know as a little p-sized thing and
  119. 03:33then you give it pinealon and seems to
  120. 03:36improve the timing and perhaps even the
  121. 03:38amount of melatonin output from the
  122. 03:39pineal these kinds of things.
  123. 03:41Epalon does that. So that's a big
  124. 03:42confusion. I don't know why he named
  125. 03:44them the way he named them. If anyone
  126. 03:45knows, please let us know. But epialon
  127. 03:48is from the pineal gland. Pinealon comes
  128. 03:50from a groundup brain extract called
  129. 03:52cortexin.
  130. 03:53And brain has a pineal in it.
  131. 03:55Yeah. But it was the cortex
  132. 03:57specifically, not not the subcortical
  133. 03:58regions. So he specifically not the
  134. 04:01subcortical regions. Sure. So Cavington
  135. 04:03identifies he makes a drug in Russia.
  136. 04:05It's called epithalamin which is the
  137. 04:06pineal gland extract and had great
  138. 04:08effect on circadian rhythmicity and
  139. 04:09melatonin because it's rich with
  140. 04:11melatonin.
  141. 04:11There you go basically giving people
  142. 04:12melatonin
  143. 04:13but also you up enzyme that creates
  144. 04:15melatonin from from serotonin to acetyl
  145. 04:17serotonin to melatonin. So like um when
  146. 04:19he gave it to young monkeys the monkeys
  147. 04:22had no effect but he gave it to age
  148. 04:24monkeys that have decreased melatonin
  149. 04:25and you know from puberty onwards your
  150. 04:27melatonin levels dramatically decrease.
  151. 04:29He was able to restore melatonin
  152. 04:31production in these aged animals and
  153. 04:32eventually replicated it on humans.
  154. 04:34I want to talk about thymus because it's
  155. 04:36fascinating and you're truly aversed in
  156. 04:38this. But before we do that, so pineal
  157. 04:41comes from the cortex, not the pineal.
  158. 04:44That's annoying.
  159. 04:44Yes, very annoying.
  160. 04:45Um, maybe we just rename it today. I'll
  161. 04:46let you do the renaming.
  162. 04:47We'll call it EDR.
  163. 04:48EDR.
  164. 04:49That's the three amino acid sequence.
  165. 04:50Great. We'll call it EDR so people don't
  166. 04:52get confused. What are some of the known
  167. 04:54effects? or am I just imagining this REM
  168. 04:57increase? Because

  169. Improving Your REM Sleep

  170. 04:58I can't change what's happening to me
  171. 05:00during sleep. Y that would be an amazing
  172. 05:03placebo effect. And the reason I say
  173. 05:04amazing is there are many things that
  174. 05:06one can do to improve the amount of
  175. 05:08slowwave deep sleep, not eating too
  176. 05:10close to bedtime, doing some exercise
  177. 05:11early in the day, etc., etc. Very hard
  178. 05:13to increase REM except by heating your
  179. 05:15sleep environment in the last third of
  180. 05:17your night. And maybe some alpha GPC in
  181. 05:20the late day can bump it up a bit. Or
  182. 05:22you can rem deprive yourself or you can
  183. 05:24smoke cannabis for 10 years then quit
  184. 05:25and then you'll get a lot of REM because
  185. 05:26you got no REM for 10 years. Do not
  186. 05:28recommend that protocol. But
  187. 05:30for me it was just striking. So why
  188. 05:32would EDR
  189. 05:34tripeptide with no receptor,
  190. 05:35right? Previously called pineal but from
  191. 05:37here uh here forward EDR why would that
  192. 05:42have this effect on on REM sleep?
  193. 05:44Yep. And and I actually searched through
  194. 05:45all of the literature from Cavinson. He
  195. 05:47never mentions REM sleep once in his
  196. 05:49studies. He studied pinolon quite
  197. 05:50extensively on different neuronal tissue
  198. 05:52extracts, animal studies, even in in
  199. 05:54athletes and never mentions the REM
  200. 05:55sleep. They weren't having they didn't
  201. 05:56have whoops in the 1970s in the Soviet
  202. 05:58Union.
  203. 05:59They didn't have an eight sleep. You're
  204. 06:00kidding me. No.
  205. 06:01Yeah. So, they didn't have, you know,
  206. 06:03sleep trackers in the 1970s uh when it
  207. 06:05came to to these. So, there was no
  208. 06:06reports on on that. But what seems to be
  209. 06:08happening, let's see, what is this on
  210. 06:11this edr? It's a tripeptide that um
  211. 06:14meets the groove of the DNA of different
  212. 06:16key regions and helps the promoter
  213. 06:18region be exposed. So then that DNA
  214. 06:20transduction can happen. Trans uh
  215. 06:22translation transcription. So you get
  216. 06:24it's turning on genetic programs.
  217. 06:26Yes.
  218. 06:26Acting a little bit like a transcription
  219. 06:28factor.
  220. 06:28Yeah. Yeah. Almost like that. Or maybe
  221. 06:30assisting transcription factors in
  222. 06:31accessing the DNA in the right places.

  223. Optimizing Brain Metabolism

  224. 06:33So pinealon in one sentence it's leading
  225. 06:36to better brain metabolism through
  226. 06:38modulating all these different pathways.
  227. 06:40for example GDF11 sod one sod 2 uh iris
  228. 06:44PPR alpha PPR gamma so what seems to be
  229. 06:46happening so he made pinealon as a
  230. 06:49anti-stress um cognitive performance
  231. 06:51compound
  232. 06:52uh and it was available orally in like
  233. 06:54Kazakhstan to
  234. 06:56that I'm taking it before sleep I should
  235. 06:57be taking in the morning
  236. 06:58yes so if you take a high enough dose
  237. 07:00there is sedation from it but if you
  238. 07:02take it in the morning or prehit workout
  239. 07:04you get quite an interesting effect so
  240. 07:05he studied this um compound on athletes
  241. 07:08and he would uh do have them do their
  242. 07:09training session, go to exhaustion and
  243. 07:11then do a test afterwards. And there's
  244. 07:14two groups, pinealon and the placebo.
  245. 07:15The pinealon group could keep the
  246. 07:17performance up despite uh being
  247. 07:19maximally exhausted from their training.
  248. 07:21I feel like such a dummy. Here I am
  249. 07:22having like these elaborate dreams I
  250. 07:24don't really remember or care about when
  251. 07:25I could be actually thinking better
  252. 07:27during the daytime.
  253. 07:28Yeah. So a lot of people report less
  254. 07:29brain fog, you know, better thinking. Uh
  255. 07:32there's a friend that has a a you know,
  256. 07:34nine figure company. He has all of his
  257. 07:35employees on pineal on. They're taking

  258. Dosage & Administration Tips

  259. 07:37in the morning.
  260. 07:37In the morning uh or at night depending
  261. 07:39on
  262. 07:39Do you know the dosages? Not that we're
  263. 07:40recommending it.
  264. 07:41Orally people will take anywhere between
  265. 07:43you know half a milligram up to three
  266. 07:45milligs is what where people um settle
  267. 07:48in. Um the cavin ones that that that
  268. 07:50come from Russia are like 200
  269. 07:52micrograms.
  270. 07:53Some people are injecting it.
  271. 07:54Some people are injecting it.
  272. 07:55It goes systemic.
  273. 07:55Ego systemic. It's orally available
  274. 07:57through these uh Latin pep transporters.
  275. 07:59Crosses the bloodb brain barrier
  276. 08:00most likely. Yes.
  277. 08:01Okay. Okay. Cuz it's coming from cortex,
  278. 08:03but otherwise we're the way you're
  279. 08:04describing it, we're putting no one's
  280. 08:06infusing into the brain.
  281. 08:07No one's so we're assuming it's small
  282. 08:09enough. It's a tripeptide to cross the
  283. 08:10the bloodb brain barrier.
  284. 08:11Have you tried it?
  285. 08:12I took some last night, but
  286. 08:13Okay. At night.
  287. 08:14Yeah. So, I I will take larger dosages
  288. 08:17uh if I want to get good sleep. I'll
  289. 08:19describe as 8K. Some people it will
  290. 08:21cause them to have a little bit of
  291. 08:22awakening. Um at first, that may be why
  292. 08:25your deep sleep is going away. I'll say
  293. 08:27this. If I take half of what was
  294. 08:30recommended, I'm great. But I'm very
  295. 08:32sensitive to everything. I'm just
  296. 08:34sensitive. If I take what was
  297. 08:35recommended, I fall very deeply asleep.
  298. 08:37I have elaborate dreams and I wake up.
  299. 08:39Yeah. And I couldn't tell if that was a
  300. 08:41disruption in sleep architecture.
  301. 08:43I just found and and granted I'm only
  302. 08:45doing this three times per month
  303. 08:46maximum. And I often forget and then I
  304. 08:48go months and months and I was like,
  305. 08:49"Oh, maybe I'll take a little pineal."
  306. 08:52Whoa, this is wild. and then I'd stop
  307. 08:54taking it because because I don't know
  308. 08:56enough about it. Now I know it's cleanly
  309. 08:57sourced because I trust the compounding
  310. 08:59pharmacy it's coming from, but I should
  311. 09:01ask are there any known risks of EDR
  312. 09:04so far? Nothing in the Russian

  313. Safety & Side Effects

  314. 09:06literature. So big caveat, it's Russian
  315. 09:07literature. It's not gold standard
  316. 09:08American research that we love here. Um
  317. 09:11so there's nothing that's come up as a
  318. 09:13you know clear sign cuz what what it
  319. 09:15seems the big theory of cavin is that as
  320. 09:17you're when you're younger you make a
  321. 09:19lot of these peptides naturally these
  322. 09:21tri die tri and tetropeptides and as you
  323. 09:24age they go down in function and
  324. 09:26quantity and by replenishing these
  325. 09:29peptides you're restoring some aspect of
  326. 09:30youthfulness
  327. 09:31something similar happens in America
  328. 09:33with GHK copper which is another
  329. 09:34tripeptide that's technically like the
  330. 09:36collagen regulator so is the brain
  331. 09:38regulator and GHK copper is collagen
  332. 09:40regulator. But so far the the side
  333. 09:43effects we've noticed we have the
  334. 09:45probably the biggest anecdotal uh
  335. 09:46compilation of N equals one every every
  336. 09:48day I wake up someone text be like hey
  337. 09:49pinealon did this to me some people have
  338. 09:51a little drop in blood sugar because it
  339. 09:53activates PPR alpha PPR gamma so it'll
  340. 09:55have positive metabolic effects so
  341. 09:57that's something to keep an eye out and
  342. 09:59some people even had their A1C's drop so
  343. 10:02hypoglycemics and other people blood
  344. 10:04sugar issues take extra caution
  345. 10:06and then very vivid dreams for some
  346. 10:07people that could be disheartening if
  347. 10:10they have like you know nightmares or
  348. 10:11something like that. But very very vivid
  349. 10:13dreams uh as a result of a pinealon
  350. 10:16especially like the the color and the
  351. 10:18the quality of the dreams is very
  352. 10:19different than you normally expect.
  353. 10:21What seems to be happening
  354. 10:23is like just like you know psychedelics
  355. 10:25change the redux state of the brain.
  356. 10:28Pinealon is doing something similar
  357. 10:29where you're getting more alertness
  358. 10:31during the day
  359. 10:32like you don't wake up with as much
  360. 10:33brain fog uh at least anecdotally. uh
  361. 10:36you get better performance during like
  362. 10:37high-intensity interval training and
  363. 10:39then you get more REM sleep at night um
  364. 10:42because the the neurons are in a better
  365. 10:43oxidative state thanks to the PPR alpha
  366. 10:45PPR gamma iris and all these different
  367. 10:46pathways that it's modulating
  368. 10:48um with no clear one you know receptor
  369. 10:50that it's doing it through