Vasopressin and Physostigmine in the Treatment of Amnesia

Abstract

We planned a double-blind cross-over study of memory processes in patients with common types of amnesia after administration of vasopressin, physostigmine and placebo in order to validate the possible role of these drugs in the treatment of organic amnesia. Memory, learning, vigilance, attention and concentration were tested in 24 organic amnesic patients after the three treatments. No statistically significant differences among the treatments were found.

Studies of vasopressin in the human cerebrospinal fluid

“…A number of reports have indicated a beneficial effect of AVP and congeners in sporadic cases of patients with memory disorders caused by brain trauma, alcoholism or depressive illness (39,124,125), and AVP analogs have been claimed to improve performance in some items of a neuropsychological test in healthy volunteers (39,126). In subsequent double-blind studies of relatively small series of patients with post-traumatic amnesia or senile dementia, the results have been negative or have shown minor, often unspecific effect, especially on attention and reaction time (127)(128)(129)(130)(131)(132). All these investigators have used systemic administration of the peptide by the intranasal route, and hence the problem of a blood-brain barrier to AVP analogs must be taken into consideration.…”

Vasopressin and memory: improvement in normal short-term recall and reduction of alcohol-induced amnesia

“…1978;Oliveros et al 1978), and facilitate memory in healthy volunteers (Beckwith et al 1982(Beckwith et al , 1983Weingartner et al 1981). However, Fehm-Wolfsdorf and colleagues have pointed out that there are many negative findings which are directly contrary to those reported above (Fehm-Wolfsdorf et al 1984Franceschi et al 1982: Jenkins et al 1982.…”

“…Such asymmetries in treatment effects are hard to predict, but they often act to reduce the difference between treatments (Millar & Wilkinson, 1981;Poulton & Edwards, 1979). Thus negative effects of vasopressin which are based on crossover designs may be difficult to interpret (Fewtrell et al 1982;Franceschi et al 1982).…”