Scopolamine: An old drug with new psychiatric applications

Reports new study in Biological Psychiatry

2013-02-12

(Press-News.org) Philadelphia, PA, February 12, 2013 – Scopolamine is an anticholinergic drug with many uses. For example, it prevents nausea, vomiting, and motion sickness.

However, scopolamine is re-emerging as an antidepressant, with recent studies showing that scopolamine can rapidly improve mood in depressed patients. In addition, in a new study published in Biological Psychiatry this month by Dr. Moriel Zelikowsky and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, it may also be a possible treatment for anxiety disorders.

Exposure therapy, where the key goal is the elimination of fear through repeated 'safe' exposure to the threat, is commonly employed for the treatment of anxiety disorders. However, its effectiveness is diminished because humans and animals alike tend to be very sensitive to context, causing extinction learning to be dependent on the environment in which it occurs. This makes memories formed during extinction unstable. As a result, extinguished fears commonly return when people put themselves in new situations.

"Current research aimed at treating this problem either employs invasive, untranslatable methods or attempts to strengthen extinction learning rather than prevent relapse," explained senior author Dr. Michael Fanselow.

In an effort to solve this dilemma, Fanselow and his team took a novel theoretical approach. Employing an animal model of exposure therapy, they found they were able to disrupt the rats' contextual processing during extinction using low doses of scopolamine, which blocked the return of fear when the rats were exposed to both the original and a new context.

"This finding provides groundbreaking evidence that changing the nature of extinction learning, rather than its magnitude, can produce profound improvements in the prevention of relapse," added Fanselow.

Scopolamine also slowed the rate of extinction memory formation, which was overcome by adding training sessions. Taken together, these findings indicate that scopolamine may serve as a promising pharmacological adjunct to exposure therapy by improving one's resiliency to environmental changes.

"The emerging new uses for scopolamine are quite promising, although further research is needed," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "These new data are a wonderful example of the capacity of translational neuroscience approaches to identify new uses for old medications."

###The article is "Cholinergic Blockade Frees Fear Extinction from Its Contextual Dependency" by Moriel Zelikowsky, Timothy A. Hast, Rebecca Z. Bennett, Michael Merjanian, Nathaniel A. Nocera, Ravikumar Ponnusamy, and Michael S. Fanselow (doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.08.006). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 73, Issue 4 (February 15, 2013), published by Elsevier.

Notes for Editors Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Rhiannon Bugno at +1 214 648 0880 or Biol.Psych@utsouthwestern.edu. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Michael S. Fanselow at +1 310 206 0247 or fanselow@psych.ucla.edu, or Moriel Zelikowsky at moriel@caltech.edu.

The authors' affiliations, and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.

John H. Krystal, M.D., is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.

About Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal publishes both basic and clinical contributions from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major psychiatric disorders.

The journal publishes novel results of original research which represent an important new lead or significant impact on the field, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Reviews and commentaries that focus on topics of current research and interest are also encouraged.

Biological Psychiatry is one of the most selective and highly cited journals in the field of psychiatric neuroscience. It is ranked 5th out of 129 Psychiatry titles and 16th out of 243 Neurosciences titles in the Journal Citations Reports® published by Thomson Reuters. The 2011 Impact Factor score for Biological Psychiatry is 8.283.

About Elsevier Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Nursing Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading provider of professional information solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal and Risk and Business sectors, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Spotting the invisible cracks in wind turbines

2013-02-12

A significant percentage of the costs of wind energy is due to wind turbine failures, as components are weakened under turbulent air flow conditions and need to be replaced. The challenge for the team was to find a method for detecting fatigue in the wind turbines' parts without having to remove each of the components and while the turbine is in operation. Until now, standard methods have relied on so-called spectral analysis, which looks at the different frequency response. But these measurements are distorted by the turbulent working conditions. As a result, these ...

New world record efficiency for thin film silicon solar cells

2013-02-12

The Photovoltaics-Laboratory (PV-Lab) of EPFL's Insitute of Microengineering (IMT), founded in 1984 by Prof. Arvind Shah and now headed by Prof. Christophe Ballif, is well known as a pioneer in the development of thin-film silicon solar cells, and as a precursor in the use of microcrystalline silicon as a photoactive material in thin-film silicon photovoltaic (TF-Si PV) devices. A remarkable step was achieved by the team led by Dr. Fanny Meillaud and Dr. Matthieu Despeisse with a new world record efficiency of 10.7% for a single-junction microcrystalline silicon solar cell, ...

Depression risk among women in the military deployed after childbirth

2013-02-12

New Rochelle, NY, February 12, 2013—About 16,000 women on active duty in the U.S. military give birth each year. Most return to service after 6 weeks and can be deployed after 4 months. The potential for an increased risk of depression among new mothers who deploy and are exposed to combat experience is presented in a study published in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh. Stacie Nguyen, MPH and coauthors from ...

New material promises better solar cells

2013-02-12

This press release is available in German. Single atomic layers are combined to create novel materials with completely new properties. Layered oxide heterostructures are a new class of materials, which has attracted a great deal of attention among materials scientists in the last few years. A research team at the Vienna University of Technology, together with colleagues from the USA and Germany, has now shown that these heterostructures can be used to create a new kind of extremely efficient ultra-thin solar cells. Discovering New Material Properties in Computer ...

Study shows long-term success rates for eradication of Barrett's esophagus after endoluminal therapies

2013-02-12

OAK BROOK, Ill. – February 12, 2013 – A new study from researchers at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania reports that endoluminal (endoscopic) therapies, combining resection and ablation techniques, for patients with Barrett's esophagus and high-grade dysplasia or early mucosal cancer have a high success rate, with durable results and a low risk of complications. The researchers noted that endoscopic surveillance after successful eradication is required. The study appears in the February issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific ...

Crew rotation and passenger connections spread flight delays

2013-02-12

This press release is available in Spanish. A study led by researchers of the Spanish National Research Council and the University of the Balearic Islands asserts that crew rotation and passengers connections systematically spread flight delays due to a domino effect. The work, that proposes a new methodology to assess the degree of air traffic congestion, is published on the latest issue of Scientific Reports. The study, based on data collected by the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States, provides a tool to evaluate airlines planning and confirms that ...

Cheap, strong lithium-ion battery developed at USC

2013-02-12

Researchers at USC have developed a new lithium-ion battery design that uses porous silicon nanoparticles in place of the traditional graphite anodes to provide superior performance. The new batteries—which could be used in anything from cell phones to hybrid cars—hold three times as much energy as comparable graphite-based designs and recharge within 10 minutes. The design, currently under a provisional patent, could be commercially available within two to three years. "It's an exciting research. It opens the door for the design of the next generation lithium-ion batteries," ...

Model aims to help companies make products we actually want

2013-02-12

Researchers have developed a model that will, hopefully, help companies develop innovative products that people actually want to use. The model is a first step towards capturing the behavior of both companies and consumers, so that we end up with more iPods and fewer Edsels. This concept may sound obvious, but companies have difficulty grasping it. Companies constantly try to develop new products and services that capture market share. We knew that. Consumers constantly try to evaluate recent innovations to determine whether they're useful, and how much they'd be willing ...

Can therapy dogs be beneficial for children with autism spectrum disorder?

2013-02-12

New Rochelle, NY, February 12, 2013—About 1 in 150 children are affected by an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a group of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by difficulty with language, communication, and social interaction. A critical review of several published studies evaluating the potential for therapy or assistance dogs to help children with ASD overcome some of these challenges is published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal ...

Middle East river basin has lost Dead Sea-sized quantity of water

2013-02-12

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 12, 2013 – Already strained by water scarcity and political tensions, the arid Middle East along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is losing critical water reserves at a rapid pace, from Turkey upstream to Syria, Iran and Iraq below. Unable to conduct measurements on the ground in the politically unstable region, UC Irvine scientists and colleagues used data from space to uncover the extent of the problem. They took measurements from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites, and found that between 2003 and 2010, the four nations lost ...

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Scopolamine: An old drug with new psychiatric applications

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: