Disclaimer: This post is not a recommendation or endorsement for hydergine. This medication is FDA-approved for the treatment of specific medical disorders, and can only be taken by prescription and with oversight from a licensed medical professional. We have written this post for informational purposes only, and our goal is to inform people about the science behind hydergine’s effects, mechanisms, and current medical uses.

What is Hydergine?

Hydergine is the brand name for a drug (ergoloid mesylates) approved by the FDA. It is produced in the lab from a mixture of alkaloids derived from ergot, a fungus that grows on rye. The individual components of hydergine are:

• Dihydroergocornine, which reduces blood pressure and heart rate, and improves brain blood flow [R, R]
• Dihydroergocristine, which also reduces blood pressure and decreases amyloid-beta peptides [R, R]
• Dihydro-alpha-ergocryptine, which improves cognition in rats [R]
• Dihydro-beta-ergocryptine

Hydergine is used to treat the elderly (over 60 years of age) with declined mental capacity. In fact, most of its effects in humans are in elderly patients with dementia. Hydergine’s effects include improvement of depressive mood, anxiety, fatigue, stroke recovery, vigilance, hearing loss, headaches, and sleep disorders.

Furthermore, hydergine is an antioxidant and is currently being used as a “smart drug,” due to its reported ability to improve cognitive function in healthy individuals.

Mechanism of Action

Although its exact biological mechanism remains unknown, hydergine increases blood and oxygen supply to the brain, which boosts energy production and may help explain the improvement of age-related mental decline [R, R, R, R].

The above effect on blood flow may be derived from blocking alpha-adrenoceptors, which produces vasodilatation (widening of blood vessels) [R].

Hydergine activates both D1 and D2 dopamine receptors in rats, although blocking of D1 receptor occurs in the presence of high concentrations of dopamine [R].

The improvement in the dopamine system in the elderly and associated cognitive benefits may also result from the hydergine-induced decrease in brain levels of MAO

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