TO THE EDITOR Catatonia is a well known psychomotor disturbance, commonly associated with mood disorders followed by schizophrenia; mutism being the most common symptom. Patients with catatonia often respond to high dose of benzodiazepine or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); however, the combination of benzodiazepine and ECT is also reported to be safe and effective in patients of catatonia. A 2...

OBJECTIVE The effects on cortical rhythms of a single-dose (30 microg/kg) administration of the GABAA agonist lorazepam were examined in a randomized, double-blind, cross-over, placebo-controlled study with 8 healthy volunteers using simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG). METHODS The oscillations were assessed by means of adaptive classification of short-t...

We evaluated the EMIT (enzyme-multiplied immuno technique) and FPIA (fluorescence polarization immunoassay) urine screening systems for detection of benzodiazepine intake. Healthy male volunteers were given single oral therapeutic doses of alprazolam (2 mg), chlordiazepoxide (25 mg), flunitrazepam (1 mg), lorazepam (3.75 mg), nitrazepam (5 mg), and triazolam (0.25 mg), after which urine was col...

BACKGROUND Choosing an antiepileptic medication to treat a patient with epilepsy can be a complicated process during which the treating physician must base her or his decision on efficacy and safety of each of many available drugs. The lack of comparative studies between medications is one of the reasons. METHODS We conducted a survey on the management of newly diagnosed epilepsy in adult pat...

Insomnia is a serious worldwide health problem that is often comorbid with anxiety. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of a Chinese formula containing Suan Zao Ren Tang (SZRT) and Zhi Zi Chi Tang (ZZCT; SZR-ZZC) for improving sleep quality and anxiety states with four indices of Polysomnography (PSG), the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Ind...

1. Ten postcards were shown to groups of ten to twenty patients over 60, 90 or 270 min after intravenous injection of saline, diazepam (10 and 20 mg), flunitrazepam (1 and 2 mg) and lorazepam (4 mg). 2. Incidence of amnesia was estimated by the patients' ability to recall or recognize these cards and to recall various other incidents in the para-anaesthetic period. 3. The use of a dummy confirm...

BACKGROUND In sub-Saharan Africa, rectal diazepam or intramuscular paraldehyde are commonly used as first-line anticonvulsant agents in the emergency treatment of seizures in children. These treatments can be expensive and sometimes toxic. We aimed to assess a drug and delivery system that is potentially more effective, safer, and easier to administer than those presently in use. METHODS We d...

Drugs that are clinically effective against generalized anxiety disorder preferentially alter rodent risk assessment behavior, whereas drugs that are clinically effective against panic disorder preferentially alter rodent flight behavior. The theoretical principle of "defensive direction" explains the pattern of associations between emotion and defensive behavior in terms of the differing funct...