In this study 26 healthy volunteers received scopolamine 0.7 mg subcutaneously on seven occasions at least a week apart. Cognitive efficiency was measured with a test battery before and 60 min following scopolamine on each occasion. Following this, over the seven occasions, a range of oral and intravenous dose regimens were administered including aniracetam 2 mg intravenously, 100 mg intravenously, 200 mg intravenously, 1500 mg per os and piracetam 2400 mg per os. On each session the test battery was then performed again at 120 and 200 min following scopolamine. The seven treatments were administered double- blind and the order was counterbalanced between volunteers over visits using a Latin Square design. At 60 min, scopolamine produced marked and significant decrements in all of the measures of memory and information processing. Aniracetam 1500 mg was able to sig nificantly antagonize decrements on both memory and information processing tasks. The other active treatments also produced significant effects, but for two these were equal to, and for two slightly above, the number which may have occurred by chance, and thus were questionable. Overall, the findings demonstrate that aniracetam 1500 mg can antagonize cognitive decrements produced by cholinergic blockade in healthy volunteers, and suggest that the drug possesses nootropic properties.
The effects of temazepam 20 mg and placebo were compared for premedication in patients anaesthetized with propofol and alfentanil and undergoing day surgery. Temazepam 20 mg significantly reduced preoperative anxiety and increased recovery time. A series of computerized cognitive tasks revealed significant deficits in attention and memory following anaesthesia, which were increased in range and magnitude by temazepam, which were apparent 30 min after surgery and had largely, but not completely, recovered at 4 h. This study has demonstrated that computerized cognitive testing can identify a wider profile of impairments produced by temazepam than has been found in previous work using non-computerized techniques.
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