Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology最新文献

1. For three groups of rats, intraperitoneal injections of either 250, 500, or 1000 mg/kg ethanol were paired with a distinctive environment and later a choice was offered between that environment and one that had previously been associated with saline injections.

2. For a second set of three groups of animals the identical procedure was followed except that food was available in both the environment paired with ethanol and the one paired with saline.

3. The rats showed no preference or aversion for the environment paired with the 250 mg/kg dose either when the drug was given alone or when combined with the availability of food. No preference or aversion for the 500 mg/kg dose was indicated when the drug was given alone, but the same dose combined with food was preferred to food plus saline. The 1000 mg/kg dose was found to be aversive when given by itself, yet the same dose was neither aversive nor preferred when combined with the availability of food.

4. These findings suggest that ethanol can interact with food, a positive reinforcer, in ways that cannot be predicted from the effect of the drug when presented alone.

1. The features of normal anxiety, fear and rituals are reviewed. These can occur in isolation, or in conjunction with other phenomena.

2. When they are severe and dominate the clinical picture they can form distinctive disorders like anxiety states, phobic and obsessive-compulsive disorders, and depression.

3. Management depends upon the clinical picture. Exposure is the treatment of choice for phobias and compulsive rituals, while antidepressant drugs are useful in the presence of depressive mood.

1. A double blind assessment of change on neuropsychological tests was used to determine whether psychostimulant medication would improve a particular hyperactive child's performance on tasks requiring attention and learning.

2. Thirteen hyperactive children were tested on a repeatable battery of cognitive-perceptual-motor tasks under each of three conditions: low dose of dextroamphetamine sulfate; high dose; placebo.

3. A ranking system was used to determine the comparative efficacy of doses in terms of overall performance on the battery. Results showed that d-amphetamine was more effective than placebo for 11 of the 13 children.

4. The advantages of the assessment method for the physician, in terms of titrating doses quickly and in continuing to monitor dose effectiveness in long-term follow-up, were discussed.

1. Fluphenazine decanoate (FD) 50 mg was administered to 15 patients. The patient population was divided into three groups: i) Group A including 5 subjects who had never been treated before; ii) Group B including 5 subjects treated with neuroleptics for at least one year, but who had discontinued the drugs for at least three months and iii) Group C including 5 subjects who had been chronically treated with neuroleptics for at least two years.

2. The increase in plasma level of the hormone prolactin (PRL) after the administration of FD was different in the three groups. The patients never treated before showed the highest “PRL response”, which had a great variability among all patients.

3. The “PRL response” did not correlate neither with psychopathological changes nor with extrapyramidal side effects.

4. The “PRL response” did not seem to be a useful tool in predicting the appropriate dosage and interval of the FD administration in a given patient.

1. Drug-induced neurological disease is a relatively common problem. For example, the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program reported that in 11,526 hospitalized patients, 14.2% of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) were neurological.

2. Drugs can induce various syndromes such as: disturbances of consciousness, psychiatric disorders, headache, cranial nerve disorders, movement disorders, psychosis, peripheral neuropathy, myopathy and autonomic dysfunction.

3. The vast majority of ADRs are dose-related (e.g. CNS depression by sedative-hypnotics). In these cases the frequency and severity of the ADRs is proportional to the administered dose, therefore, they can be prevented and/or treated by adjusting the dosage to patient's needs. Dose-unrelated ADRs (e.g. malignant hyperthermia by various anaesthetic agents) are uncommon and the development of the reaction is mainly dependent on increased patient's susceptibility. Accordingly, the ADR can only be prevented by not readministering the drug.

4. Most of the evidence associating specific drugs with neurological adverse events comes from single case reports in which no systematic assessment of causality has been made. Recently, valid and reliable definitions of ADRs have been reported (e.g. Kramer et al, 1979; Naranjo et al, 1981). The systematic application of these methods greatly reduce the ambiguity for analyzing alleged cases of ADRs. These methods can be easily applied by practising physicians in the assessment and reporting of suspected drug-induced neurological diseases.

1. EEG activity was assessed in rats following the intraventricular injection of cholinergic agonists (carbamylcholine and nicotine tartrate), nicotinic antagonists (d-tubocurarine and α-bungarotoxin), ganglionic blockers (mecamylamine and hexamethonium), decamethonium, antibodies prepared against purified electric fish acetylcholine receptor, and human sera from myasthenic and epileptic patients.

2. Seizures were produced only by agonists and nicotinic antagonists.

3. Carbamylcholine produced clonic/tonic convulsions. Nicotine resulted in a depressed EEG with sporadic seizures.

4. Both antagonists produced clonic/tonic seizures and spike activity. Carbamylcholine-induced seizures were blocked by scopolamine.

5. No agent was found to block antagonist-induced seizures.

1. The pharmacological approaches to the management of senile dementia are critically reviewed, with emphasis on the vasodilator drugs, drugs with combined vasodilator and cerebral activator effect, neurotransmitters and their precursors, neuropeptides, use of antioxidants, stimulants of protein biosynthesis, antiviral agents, chelating agents and anticoagulants.

2. The assumptions underlying the use of the above agents and their limitations are discussed as well as the methodological problems encountered in setting up adequate drug trials in patients with senile dementia.

1. This paper describes a double-blind study of dothiepin HCl compared with doxepin HCl.

2. 28 male and female patients suffering from reactive or neurotic depression were treated.

3. There was no significant difference between the two drugs.

4. ECG analysis showed no significant difference between their cardiac effects.

1. Rats were treated for 21 days with haloperidol (2mg/kg/day) and prolactin levels were measured serially. The increase in prolactin was obvious throughout the treatment and was even more prominent after repeated injections.

2. Immunoreactive β-endorphin levels were increased in the pituitary, whereas decreased in N. accumbens in rats chronically treated with haloperidol. The opiate receptor binding in the striatum showed no change in treated rats as compared with controls.

3. The present study suggests that 1) tolerance does not develop in prolactin-increasing action of haloperidol; 2) dopamine receptors have a role in the control of immunoreactive β-endorphin in some brain areas; 3) the various dopaminergic pathways in the brain respond differently to chronic treatment with haloperidol in terms of immunoreactive β-endorphin regulation.