Dear friends , after reading the article below I wonder what effects may have by
the use of Selegiline (Eldepryl, etc.) that is known as having some anphetamine
in his components
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By JOHN O'NEIL
Even in low doses and even for a relatively short time,
amphetamine
use leads to diminished capacity to learn in monkeys, a Yale
study
has found.
But in some cases the damage was reversed. And the treatment the
researchers used may hold promise for disorders linked to excessive
levels of the brain chemical dopamine.
Dr. Stacy Castner, the researcher at Yale who conducted the study,
said
the team was surprised at the depth and persistence of the cognitive
deficits that resulted from six weeks' intermittent exposure to the
drugs. A
task that undrugged monkeys were able to learn in fewer than 100
attempts was beyond the ability of the drugged monkeys after up to 18
months of trials, she wrote.
The implication for humans, she said, is that even brief periods of
dabbling in amphetamines could diminish the mind's performance for
years and perhaps permanently.
In the second phase of the study, the drugged monkeys were given an
experimental medication that stimulated a dopamine receptor, reducing
the dopamine's effect.
Dr. Patricia Goldman-Rakic, a neuroscience professor at Yale who
supervised the work, said that in some cases this succeeded in
reversing
the cognitive damage, apparently permanently.
"The message from this research," she said, "shouldn't be that it's
now
O.K. to take speed because there's a drug that can reverse it."
Instead,
the hope is that studies into medications that alter dopamine levels
could
eventually lead to treatments for a wide range of conditions,
including
schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder, in which that delicate
balance
is involuntarily disrupted.
The study was presented in Miami last week at a conference of the
Society of Neuroscience.
The N.York Times On Line
--
Cheers,
+----| Joao Paulo de Carvalho |------ +
| [log in to unmask] |
+--------| Salvador-Bahia-Brazil |------+
