PH15 Overview
Acute Treatment for Cognition Improvement
PH15 is an early-stage investigational synthetic neuroactive steroid with potential to engage receptors in nasal chemosensory cells that are neurally connected to the limbic amygdala, which is connected to neural centers associated with the control of cognition. Early functional MRI studies in human volunteers at Stanford University revealed that intranasal administration of PH15 induced rapid activation of brain areas related to cognition.1
In a double blind, placebo-controlled crossover study in healthy human subjects (n=10) conducted at the National Institute of Psychiatry, Sleep Disorders Clinic, Mexico City, Mexico, intranasal PH15 showed rapid and significant improvement in cognitive and psychomotor performance and improvement of reaction time in subjects who were sleep deprived, which was significantly better than the effect of a placebo or 400 mg oral caffeine. PH15 was well-tolerated in this study and no serious adverse events were reported.
1. Sobel et al, Brain, 1999