Piracetam Improves Activated Blood Flow and Facilitates Rehabilitation of Poststroke Aphasic Patients

Abstract

Background and Purpose-In a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, it was investigated whether piracetam improves language recovery in poststroke aphasia assessed by neuropsychological tests and activation PET measurement of cerebral blood flow. Methods-Twenty-four stroke patients with aphasia were randomly allocated to 2 groups: 12 patients received 2400 mg piracetam twice daily, 12 placebo. Before and at the end of the 6-week treatment period in which both groups received intensive speech therapy, the patients were examined neuropsychologically and studied with H 2 15 O PET at rest and during activation with a word-repetition task. Blood flow was analyzed in 14 language-activated brain regions defined on reconstructed surface views from MRI coregistered to the PET images. Results-Before treatment, both groups were comparable with respect to performance in language tasks and to type and severity of aphasia. In the piracetam group, increase of activation effect was significantly higher (PϽ0.05) in the left transverse temporal gyrus, left triangular part of inferior frontal gyrus, and left posterior superior temporal gyrus after the treatment period compared with the initial measures. The placebo group showed an increase of activation effect only in the left vocalization area. In the test battery, the piracetam group improved in 6 language functions, the placebo group only in 3 subtests. Conclusions-Piracetam as an adjuvant to speech therapy improves recovery of various language functions, and this effect is accompanied by a significant increase of task-related flow activation in eloquent areas of the left hemisphere. (Stroke.

Renewal of the Neurophysiology of Language: Functional Neuroimaging

“…The few available reports concern studies that have mainly focused on behavioral revalidation, with the exception of one report on neuroimaging and pharmacological therapy in aphasia (180). This placebo-controlled activation study demonstrated a significant improvement in patients treated with piracetam, a GABA derivative.…”

Place of piracetam in the modern practice of medicine

“…Интересно, что прием пирацетама в тех же дозах в периоды между выполнением за-даний, то есть в состоянии покоя, не вызывал зако-номерных изменений ЭЭГ. Другая методика выбора доз пирацетама основывается на данных некоторых авторов [70,93] о том, что приоритетное значение в этом смысле имеет не суточная, а курсовая доза препарата.…”

“…Дозировка пирацетама варьирует в соответствии с показаниями [67,70,82,93] Взрослым назначают пирацетам, начиная с су-точной дозы 1,2 г (по 0,4 г 3 раза в сутки), и доводят ее до 2,4 г, иногда до 3,2 г и более. Отчетливый тера-певтический эффект в этих случаях отмечается, как правило, через 2-3 недели от начала лечения.…”

Pharmacotherapy to Improve the Acquired Aphasia following Brain Damages: A Review Study

“…In general, this type of treatment strategy influences the neurotransmitters and facilitates recovery process of neural networks infrastructure of language processing (35). Positron Emission Tomography ( PET) studies indicate that aphasia recovery after taking these medicine facilitates and accelerates the reactivation of left hemisphere (36,37). Nevertheless, researchers have not attained specific biomarkers which can prove the pharmacotherapy efficiency on improvement of the neural circuitry associated with language (7).…”