Dose-response analysis of the behavioral effects of diazepam: I. Learning and memory

Ghoneim, Mohammed M.; Hinrichs, James V.; Mewaldt, Steven P.

doi:10.1007/bf00427672

Cited by 167 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Undoubtedly, there is a relation with the decrease of vigilance and alertness [3]. Next to these effects, benzo diazepines induce anterograde amnesia: this means that the recall of information obtained under the influence of these drugs is impaired [1,[4][5][6][7], Nevertheless, the infor mation obtained before drug intake is intact, it is there fore thought that the retrieval mechanism works prop erly and that other stages of information processing are affected, such as the transfer from short-to long-term memory and the consolidation process [8], On the other hand, an improvement of the recall of information pre sented immediately before drug intake can be estab lished. This striking phenomenon is called retrograde facilitation [1.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognition and Vigilance: Differential Effects of Diazepam and Buspirone on Memory and Psychomotor Performance

1992

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Effects of a single dose of the anxiolytic buspirone (15 mg) on memory and psychomotor performance were studied in healthy volunteers and compared to those of the classic benzodiazepine anxiolytic diazepam (15 mg). The study was performed in a double-blind, placebo-controlled way. Three groups of 12 subjects were exposed to an extended test battery before and after intake of drug or placebo. Next to this, an evaluation session took place 1 week later. Immediately after intake, diazepam exerted major effects on memory, impaired psychomotor performance and decreased alterness. In particular, long-term memory had deteriorated, which was interpreted as anterograde amnesia. One week later, more items were recalled from the predrug session compared to the number of items from the postdrug session; this was interpreted as retrograde facilitation. After intake of buspirone, there were no effects of altertness and vigilance, on psychomotor performance and on memory. One week later, a small memory decrement was noticed for verbal material, which was considered as a sign of anterograde amnesia. These results indicate that effects of anxiolytics on memory can be more easily demonstrated 1 week later than immediately after drug intake and, furthermore, that the disruptive effects of diazepam outweigh the small effects of buspirone. Finally, it was established that the effects of diazepam on cognition might be mediated by its effects on alertness and vigilance and that cognitive effects are not related to the anxiolytic properties of the drug.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognition and Vigilance: Differential Effects of Diazepam and Buspirone on Memory and Psychomotor Performance

1992

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“…This challenge, selected on the basis of previous reports (1,2), was optimized in a preliminary study in which we demonstrated that 15 mg of diazepam caused a clear (about 20% recognition deficit) and significant impairment in the delayed recognition of abstract visual shapes (3). Because this anterograde amnesic effect was obtained without concomitant effects on detection, visual perceptual, or discriminative performances, even at peak levels of drug activity (3), it selectively interfered with memory-related processes during the encoding of new information.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Positron-emission tomography imaging of long-term shape recognition challenges

Rosier

Cornette

Dupont

et al. 1997

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Long-term visual memory performance was impaired by two types of challenges: a diazepam challenge on acquisition and a sensory challenge on recognition. Using positron-emission tomography regional cerebral blood f low imaging, we studied the effect of these challenges on regional brain activation during the delayed recognition of abstract visual shapes as compared with a baseline fixation task. Both challenges induced a significant decrease in differential activation in the left fusiform gyrus, suggesting that this region is involved in the automatic or volitional comparison of incoming and stored stimuli. In contrast, thalamic differential activation increased in response to memory challenges. This increase might ref lect enhanced retrieval attempts as a compensatory mechanism for restoring recognition performance.Because recognition memory requires judgments concerning the prior occurrence of items, interference with either memory storage or retrieval may impair task performance. Whether such interventions specifically influence the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) pattern during recognition is as yet unknown. We addressed this question by challenging a long-term memory task involving the recognition of abstract visual shapes in two different ways: a pharmacological and a sensory challenge.We chose to use abstract shapes to limit the possible influence of (verbal or visual) semantic associations.The pharmacological challenge consisted of the presence of the benzodiazepine diazepam during the acquisition of new information. This challenge, selected on the basis of previous reports (1, 2), was optimized in a preliminary study in which we demonstrated that 15 mg of diazepam caused a clear (about 20% recognition deficit) and significant impairment in the delayed recognition of abstract visual shapes (3). Because this anterograde amnesic effect was obtained without concomitant effects on detection, visual perceptual, or discriminative performances, even at peak levels of drug activity (3), it selectively interfered with memory-related processes during the encoding of new information. To examine the specificity of the rCBF changes during an impaired delayed recognition, we selected a second challenge that induced a deficit in recognition performance which was similar in degree to that induced by diazepam. This second, sensory challenge consisted of a shorter stimulus presentation during recognition (4). As with the pharmacological challenge, this sensory challenge did not significantly impair visual perceptual and discriminative performances, and thus its effect was also restricted to memoryrelated processes.Hence, this experimental design provided us with the tool to examine whether changes in rCBF during delayed recognition were specifically related to the diazepam challenge during acquisition or whether they reflected a more general degradation in recognition performance, regardless of the primary cause of this impairment. METHODSSubjects. Twelve right-handed male students were recruited. They ranged i...

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“…Impaired learning of verbal and visual information was demonstrated in both anxious and normal nonelderly volunteers (26,73). Bond & Lader (10) have shown that the cognitive impairment associated with long-acting benzodiazepines persists for an extended period of time.…”

Section: Cognitive Impairment Resulting From Monotherapymentioning

confidence: 99%