Semax Protocol: Concentrations Behind the Schedule

Three quantities do all the work. A labelled mass divided by a liquid volume gives a concentration. A device removes a volume. Concentration multiplied by removed volume gives the delivered mass.

The vial branch and the spray branch differ only in which of those the buyer sets. Reconstituting a vial makes the liquid volume a free choice and the removed volume a barrel reading. Buying a filled spray makes the liquid volume a manufacturer's decision and the removed volume a pump rating.

Assumed inputs: a U-100 insulin syringe, where one unit is 0.01 mL, and a nasal pump rated at 0.1 mL per stroke on a solution of 1 mg per mL.

Read down a column and the same syringe becomes a different instrument. Read across a row and one target mass turns into four different readings, none of which is more correct than the others.

None of the three vial concentrations is a property of the compound. Each is a division the buyer performed.

A 10 mg vial with 5 mL of bacteriostatic water gives 10 divided by 5, which is 2 mg per mL. The same vial with 2 mL gives 5 mg per mL. A 30 mg vial with 3 mL gives 10 mg per mL. A 5 mg vial with 2.5 mL also lands on 2 mg per mL, which is worth noticing: two different labelled masses reach the same column of the table, and a syringe reading taken from one is a valid reading for the other.

The spray column is the odd one. If the bottle states 3 mg in 3 mL, then 3 divided by 3 gives 1 mg per mL and the arithmetic is done on printed numbers. The buyer contributes nothing and can check nothing beyond the label.

Two cells in the table ask for half a unit. At 2 mg per mL, 250 mcg is 12.5 units. At 10 mg per mL, it is 2.5 units. On a barrel graduated in whole units, both are estimates.

That is a concentration problem rather than a target problem. The same 250 mcg at 5 mg per mL is exactly 5 units. Choosing the fill volume so the masses you care about land on whole graduations is the one place where the arithmetic gives practical advice, and it is advice about reading a syringe, not about what to put in it.

The spray row has the same defect with less recourse. Two and a half actuations do not exist. A pump either fires or does not, so any target that is not a whole multiple of the per stroke mass is unreachable in that container.

The vial branch loses very little. Some liquid stays in the needle hub, and it is small enough that most records ignore it.

The spray branch loses material in two places, and neither appears on the bottle. Priming comes first: assume three strokes to fill the tube before anything is delivered, which at 0.1 mL each is 0.3 mL. On a 1 mg per mL solution that is 300 mcg. Residual comes last: assume 0.25 mL that the dip tube cannot reach, another 250 mcg.

From a 3 mL bottle, usable volume is 3 minus 0.3 minus 0.25, which is 2.45 mL. At 0.1 mL per stroke that is 24 full actuations against a nominal 30. The label says 3 mg, the pump delivers about 2.4 mg, and no arithmetic performed on the label alone would have found that.

Filling your own bottle adds a third loss. Transferring a reconstituted 10 mg vial into a 5 mL bottle at 2 mg per mL, with an assumed 0.3 mL left behind in the vial and the transfer syringe, moves 4.7 mL, or 9.4 mg. After priming and residual, 4.15 mL remains, which is 41 whole actuations of 200 mcg each, or 8.2 mg. That is what leaves the pump from a 10 mg label.

Every number on this page is trivial to compute at the bench and impossible to recover a fortnight later. Six entries fix that: the labelled mass, the liquid volume added or stated, the concentration derived from dividing one by the other, the delivery device with its scale or pump rating, the volume it removes, and the mass that follows.

Three of those are observed and three are derived. Writing the derived ones down costs nothing and cannot be reconstructed by looking at a half empty container. A fill volume that went unrecorded turns every microgram figure from that vial into an assertion for as long as the vial is in use.

Diluent is usually drawn with the same syringe that will later draw from the vial, so an error in the first step propagates through every later one.

Intend 2 mL into a 10 mg vial and add 2.2 mL, and the concentration is 10 divided by 2.2, which is 4.55 mg per mL rather than 5. A 0.1 mL draw then holds 455 mcg instead of 500. The barrel reads 10 units in both cases, and nothing about the liquid looks different.

The error is proportional, so it never announces itself. It also survives correction attempts: adding more water to fix an overshoot changes the concentration again and needs the total volume recomputed, which is only possible if the overshoot was noticed and written down.

The table stops at delivered mass on purpose. It cannot go further, because the arithmetic has no access to what happens after delivery, and neither does the rest of the record for this compound.

Semax has no registered interventional trials, so no trial identifier is cited here. It does have a genuine Russian regulatory history and clinical use, which is real evidence and is also evidence a Western reader cannot inspect in the way a submitted registration dossier can be inspected. That is a transferability problem rather than an absence problem, and it is not solved by division. Animal work in rats and mice reports amounts per kilogram of animal body weight, which this page does not convert.