Effects of anxiolytics on memory

✍ Scribed by H. Valerie Curran

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 99 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6222
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1077(199908)14:1+<s72::aid-hup120>3.0.co;2-0

✦ Synopsis

Drugs used in the treatment of anxiety disorders can produce impairments of cognitive functions. This article provides an overview and summary of research on the eects of anxiolytics upon human memory. Research with the benzodiazepines has shown that they produce a dierential pattern of memory de®cits whereby episodic memory is dose-dependently impaired but other memory systems are preserved relatively intact. Other anti-anxiety drugs have received relatively little research attention in terms of their memory eects. Recent studies imply that beta-blockers may produce poor memory particularly for emotionally valent information and that, at higher doses, buspirone may have detrimental eects on verbal recall. Studies with anxious patients suggest that tolerance does not fully develop to the amnestic eects of benzodiazepines over repeated use. Further, residual memory impairments appear to persist for a time beyond cessation of use of these drugs. The importance is stressed of assessing the eects of novel anxiolytics on a wide range of memory functions in clinical populations as well as in healthy volunteers.