Abstract
Over the past three decades benzodiazepines (BDZ) have become a popular class of drugs for the treatment of various physical and emotional disorders. Their most prevalent use is as antianxiety agents, but they are also used as muscle relaxants and anticonvulsants, and in the treatment of sleep disorders. Their main appeal is the reported absence of severe side effects during their use. However, initial administration of BDZ in therapeutic doses induces a wide array of cognitive impairments.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Atkinson, R. C. and Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Human memory: a proposed system and its control processes. In Spence, K. W. and Spence, J. T. (eds), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation: Advances in Research and Theory, vol. 2, Academic Press, New York.
Baddeley, A. (1968). A three minutes reasoning test based on grammatical transformation. Psychonomic Science, 10, 341–2.
Baddeley, A. (1981). The concept of working memory: a review of its current state and probable future development. Cognition, 10, 17–23.
Baddeley, A.D. and Hitsch, G. (1974). Working memory. In Bower, G. H. (ed.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, vol. 8, Academic Press, London, 47–90.
Block, R. I. and Berchou, R. (1984). Alprazolam and lorazepam effects on memory acquisition and retrieval processes. Pharmacology Biochemistry behavior, 20, 233–41.
Braestrup, C., Schmiechen, R., Neef, G., Nielsen, M. and Petersen, E. N. (1982). Interaction of Convulsive Ligands with Benzodiazepine Receptors. Science, 216, 1241–3.
Brosan, L., Broadbent, D. E., Nutt, D. J. and Broadbent, M. (1986). Performance effects of diazepam during and after prolonged administration. Psychological Medicine, 16, 510–22.
Brown, J., Brown, M. and Bowes, J. B. (1983). Effects of lorazepam on rate of forgetting, on retrieval from semantic memory and on manual dexterity. Neuropsychologia, 21, 501–12.
Brown, J., Lewis, V., Brown, M., Horn, G. and Bowes, J. B. (1962). A comparison between transient amnesias induced by two drugs (diazepam or lorazepam) and amnesia of organic origin. Neuropsychologia, 20, 55–70.
Buschke, H. and Altman Fuld, P. (1974). Evaluating storage, retention and retrieval in disordered memory and learning. J. Verb. Learn. Verb. Behav., 12, 543–50.
Clarke, P. R. F., Eccersley, P. S., Frisby, J. P. and Thornton, J. A. (1970). The amnesic effect of diazepam (Valium). Br. J. of Anaesthesia, 42, 690–7.
Corkin, S. (1982). Some relationships between global amnesias and the memory impairments in Alzheimer’s disease. In Corkin, S., Davies, K. L., Growdon, J. H., Usdin, E. and Wurtman, R. J. (eds), Alzheimer’s Disease: A Report of Progress in Research, Raven, New York, 149–64.
Curran, H. V. (1986). Tranquillising memories: a review of the effects of benzodiazepines on human memory. Biological Psychology, 23, 179–213.
Curran, H. V., Schiwy, W., Eves, F., Shine, P. and Lader, M. (1988). A levels of processing study of the effect of benzodiazepines on human memory. Human Psychopharmacology, 3, 21–5.
Davies, D. R. and Tune, G. S. (1969). Human Vigilance Performance, Elsevier, New York.
Dorow, R., Berenberg, D., Duka, T. and Sauerbrey, N. (1987). Amnestic effects of lormetazepam and their reversal by the benzodiazepine antagonist Ro 15-1788. Psychopharmacology, 93, 507–14.
Dorow, R., Horowski, R., Paschelke, G., Armin, M. and Braestrup, C. (1983). Severe anxiety induced by FG 7142, a β-carboline ligand for benzodiazepine receptors. Lancet, ii, 98–9.
Duka, T., Ackenheil, M., Noderer, H., Doenicke, A. and Dorow, R. (1986). Changes in noradrenaline plasma levels and behavioral responses induced by benzodiazepine agonists with the benzodiazepine antagonist Ro 15-1788. Psychopharmacology, 90, 351–7.
Duka, T., Edelmann, V., Schütt, B. and Dorow, R. (1988b). β-carbolines as tools in memory research: human data with the β-carboline ZK 93 426. In Hindmarch, I. and Ott, H. (eds). Benzodiazepine Receptor Ligands, Memory and Information Processing, Springer, Berlin, 246–61.
Duka, T., Goerke, D., Dorow, R., Höller, L. and Fichte, K. (1988a). Human studies on the benzodiazepine receptor antagonist β-carboline, ZK 93 426: antagonism of lormetazepam’s psychotropic effects. Psychopharmacology, 95, 463–71.
Duka, T., Stephens, D. N., Krause, W. and Dorow, R. (1987). Psychotropic activity of the benzodiazepine receptor antagonist β-carboline, ZK 93 426, in human volunteers. Psychopharmacology, 93, 421–7.
Emrich, H. M., Sonderegger, P. and Mai, N. (1984). Actions of the benzodiazepine antagonist Ro 15-1788 in humans after sleep withdrawal. Neurosci. Lett., 47, 369–73.
File, S. E. and Pellow, S. (1986). Intrinsic actions of the benzodiazepine receptor antagonist Ro 15-1788. Psychopharmacology, 88, 1–11.
Frith, C. D., Richardson, J. T. E., Samuel, M., Crow, T. J. and McKenna, P. J. (1984). The effects of intravenous diazepam and hyoscine upon human memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36A, 133–44.
Ghoneim, M. M. and Mewaldt, S. P. (1975). Effects of diazepam and scopolamine on storage, retrieval and organisational processes in memory. Psychopharmacology, 44, 257–62.
Ghoneim, M. M. and Mewaldt, S. P. (1977). Studies on human memory: the interactions of diazepam, scopolamin, and physostigmine. Psychopharmacology, 52, 1–6.
Ghoneim, M. M., Hinrichs, J. V. and Mewaldt, S. P. (1984). Dose-response analysis of the behavioural effects of diazepam. I: Learning and memory. Psychopharmacology, 82, 291–5.
Griffiths, A. N., Marshall, R. W. and Richens, A. (1984). Saccadic eye movement analysis as a measure of drug effects on human psychomotor performance. Br. J. Clin. Pharmac., 18, 73S–82S.
Higgitt, A., Lacer, M. and Fonagy, P. (1986). The effects of the benzodiazepine antagonist Ro 15-1788 on psychophysiological performance and subjective measures in normal subjects. Psychopharmacology, 89, 395–403.
Hindmarch, I. (1975). A 1,4-benzodiazepine, temazepam (K 3917), its effect upon some psychological parameters of sleep and behaviour. Arzneimittel-Forschung, 25, 1836–9.
Hindmarch, I. (1988). Information processing: critical flicker fusion threshold and benzodiazepines: results and speculations. In Hindmarch, I. and Ott, H. (eds), Benzodiazepine Receptor Ligands, Memory and Information Processing, Springer, Berlin, 79–90.
Hinrichs, J. V., Ghoneim, M. M. and Mewaldt, S. P. (1984). Diazepam and Memory: Retrograde Facilitation Produced by Interference Reduction. Psychopharmacology, 84, 158–62.
Hommer, D. W., Matsuo, V., Wolkowitz, O., Chrousos, G., Greenblatt, D. J., Weingartner, H. and Paul, S. M. (1986). Benzodiazepine sensitivity in normal human subjects. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry, 43, 542–51.
Hunkeler, W., Möhler, H., Pieril, X. X., Polc, P., Bonetti, E. P., Cumin, R., Schaffner, R. and Haefely, W. (1981). Selective antagonists of benzodiazepines. Nature, 290, 514–16.
Jensen, L. H., Petersen, E. N., Braestrup, C., Honore, T., Kehr, W., Stephens, D. N., Schneider, H. H., Seidelmann, D. and Schmiechen, R. (1984). Evaluation of the β-carboline ZK 93 426 as a benzodiazepine receptor antagonist. Psychopharmacology, 83, 249–56.
Jensen, L., Stephens, D. N., Salter, M. and Petersen, E. N. (1987). Bidirectional effects of β-carbolines and benzodiazepines on memory processes. Brain Res. Bull., 19, 359–64.
Jones, D. M., Lewis, M. J. and Spriggs, T. L. B. (1978). Effects of low doses of diazepam on human performance in group administered tasks. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 6, 333–7.
Lister, R. G. (1985). The amnesic action of benzodiazepines in man. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev., 9, 87–93.
Lister, R. G. and File, S. E. (1984). The nature of lorazepam induced amnesia. Psychopharmacology, 83, 183–7.
Lister, R. G., Weingartner, H., Eckardt, M. J. and Linnoila, M. (1988). Clinical relevance of effects of benzodiazepines on learning and memory. In Hindmarch, I. and Ott, H. (eds), Benzodiazepine Receptor Ligands, Memory and Information Processing, Springer, Berlin, 117–28.
Mewaldt, S. P., Hinrichs, J. V. and Ghoneim, M. M. (1983). Diazepam and memory: support for a duplex model of memory. Memory and Cognition, 11, 557–64.
Navon, D. and Gopher, D. (1979). On the economy of the human-processing system. Psychol. Rev., 86, 214–55.
Nishimura, Y., Schwartz, M. L. and Rakic, P. (1986). GABA and GAD immunoreactivity of photoreceptor terminals in primate retina. Nature, 320, 753–6.
Ott, H., Rohloff, A., Aufdembrincke, B. and Fichte, K. (1988). Anterograde and retrograde amnesia after lormetazepam and flunitrazepam. In Hindmarch, I. and Ott, H. (eds), Benzodiazepine Receptor Ligands, Memory and Information Processing, Springer, Berlin, 180–94.
Richardson, G., CarsKadon, M. A., Flagg, W., van den Hoed, J., Dement, W. C. and Mitler, M. M. (1978). Excessive daytime sleepiness in man, multiple sleep latency measurement in narcoleptic and control subjects. Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol., 45, 621–7.
Robbins, J. and Ikeda, H. (1989). Benzodiazepines and the mammalian retina. II: Actions on retinal ganglion cells. Brain Research, 479, 323–33.
Sarter, M. and Stephens, D. N. (1988) β-carbolines as tools in memory research: animal data and speculations. In Hindmarch, I. and Ott, H. (eds), Benzodiazepine Receptor Ligands, Memory and Information Processing. Springer, Berlin, 230–45.
Schöpf, J., Laurian, S., Le, P. K. and Gaillard, J.-M. (1984). Intrinsic activity of the benzodiazepine antagonist Ro 15-1788 in man: an electrophysiological investigation. Pharmacopsychiatry, 17, 79–83.
Shiffrin, R. M. and Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing. II: Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory. Psychol. Rev., 84, 127–90.
Stephens, D. N. and Kehr, W. (1985). β-carbolines can enhance or antagonize the effects of punishment in mice. Psychopharmacology, 85, 182–7.
Stephens, D. N. and Sarter, M. (1988). Bidirectional nature of benzodiazepine receptor ligands extends to effects on vigilance. In Hindmarch, I. and Ott, H. (eds), Benzodiazepine Receptor Ligands, Memory and Information Processing, Springer, Berlin, 205–18.
Stephens, D. N., Duka, T. and Andrews, J. S. (1990). Benzodiazepines, β-carbolines and memory. In Hunter, J. and Weinmann (eds), Memory: Neurochemical and Abnormal Perspectives, Harwood, London, in press.
Tinklenberg, J. and Taylor, J. (1984). Assessment of drug effects on human memory functions. In Squire, L. R. and Butters, N. (eds). Neuropsychology of Memory, The Guilford Press, New York, 213–23.
Tiplady, B. (1985). An automated test battery for the detection of changes in mental function and psychomotor performance. Br. J. Clin. Pharmacol., 20, 305P.
Treisman, A. M. and Gelade, G. (1980). A feature-integration theory of attention. Cognit. Psychol., 12, 97–136.
Venault, P., Chapouthier, G., Prado de Carvalho, L., Simiand, J., Morre, M., Dodd, R. H. and Rossier, V. (1986). Benzodiazepine impairs and β-carboline enhances performance in learning and memory tasks. Nature (London), 321, 864–6.
Waller, D. and Levander, S. (1980). Smoking and vigilance: the effects of tobacco on CFF as related to personality and smoking habits. Psychopharmacology, 70, 131–6.
Wilkinson, R. T. (1968). Sleep deprivation: performance tests for partial and selective sleep deprivation. Prog. Clin. Psychol., 8, 28–43.
Ziegler, G., Ludwig, L. and Fritz, G. (1986). Effect of the specific benzodiazepine antagonist Ro 15-1788 in sleep. Pharmacopsychiatry, 19, 200–1.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1991 Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Duka, T. (1991). Bidirectional Activity of Benzodiazepine-receptor Ligands in Cognitive Functions in Humans. In: Briley, M., File, S.E. (eds) New Concepts in Anxiety. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11847-2_35
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11847-2_35
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-11849-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-11847-2
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)