TLQP-62

Where it comes from

Made in

Hippocampus and cortex, released by neuronal activity

Sent out by

Learning, exercise and antidepressant treatment; low in depression

Acts on

• Hippocampal synapses
• Neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus

What it does

• Strengthens synapses and memory consolidation, through BDNF and its TrkB receptor ²
• Has antidepressant-like effects in mice within days ¹
• Low VGF is reported in the brain and spinal fluid of depression and Alzheimer’s disease ³

In medicine

• No medicine copies it or blocks it. VGF peptides in spinal fluid are research markers of several brain diseases, read by mass spectrometry rather than by any offered test ³
• Low VGF in brain and spinal fluid is reported in depression and in Alzheimer’s disease, consistently enough to be interesting and not consistently enough to be used ³

Beyond the body’s own use

• Nothing containing it is in trials, approved or obtainable outside the laboratory
• Its antidepressant-like effect in mice is the claim being tested: injected into the hippocampus it acts within days, and the effect depends on BDNF and TrkB rather than on a receptor of its own ¹²
• What separates it from TLQP-21, which it contains, is where it acts and through what: the short peptide works on fat and sensory nerves through a complement receptor, the long one on hippocampal synapses through BDNF signalling ²