Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

H Weingartner

Publications and source records attributed to H Weingartner.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
PubMed1981

Acute effects of caffeine in normal prepubertal boys.

A recent study demonstrated that dextroamphetamine has an effect in normal prepubertal boys similar to that seen in hyperactive children. The purpose of the present study was to see whether the effects of caffeine are similar to those of amphetamine in normal children. The authors observed 19 prepubertal boys following administration of a single dose of placebo, 3 mg/kg of caffeine, and 10 mg/kg of caffeine in a double-blind, crossover design. Caffeine produced increased vigilance and decreased reaction time, as does amphetamine. Unlike amphetamine, however, the higher dose of caffeine did not have a motor calming effect but increased motor activity. Separate biological systems, therefore, may be differentially affected by the two substances.

Attention↗
PubMed1980

Dextroamphetamine. Its cognitive and behavioral effects in normal and hyperactive boys and normal men.

The effects of a single oral dose of dextroamphetamine sulfate on motor activity, vigilance, learning, and mood were compared for normal and hyperactive prepubertal boys and normal college-aged men using a double-blind crossover design. Both groups of boys and men showed decreased motor activity increased vigilance, and improvement on a learning task after taking the stimulant drug. The men reported euphoria, while the boys reported only feeling "tired# or "different# after taking the stimulant. It is not clear whether this difference in effect on mood between adults and children is due to differing experience with drugs, ability to report affect, or a true pharmacologic age-related effect. While there were some quantitative differences in drug effects on motor activity and vigilance between these different groups, stimulants appear to act similarly on normal and hyperactive children and adults.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

Retrograde enhancement of human memory with alcohol.

In two experiments with normal male subjects, the ingestion of alcohol (1 ml/kg) immediately after learning significantly improved subsequent remembering. By comparison, marijuana (15 mg) had no significant post-acquisition effect. Facilitation of visual and verbal memory with alcohol under these conditions has implications for the interference and consolidation views of memory.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Effects of 1-desamo-8-D-arginine vasopressin on behaviour and cognition in primary affective disorder.

DDAVP (1-desamino-8-d-arginine vasopressin), a synthetic analogue of vasopressin with prolonged half-life and high antidiuretic and low pressor activity, was given in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial to four patients with major affective illness. Three of four patients showed highly significant and consistent improvements in tests designed to measure the formation, encoding, and organisation of long-term trace events in memory. Two patients also showed a significant but less consistent amelioration of other depressive symptoms during DDAVP treatment. These findings implicate central vasopressin function in the processing of information and possibly other aspects of affective illness.

Affective Symptoms↗
PubMed1979

Effect of lithium carbonate on memory processes of bipolar affectively ill patients.

The effect of long-term lithium carbonate treatment on parameters of immediate, short-, and long-term memory was examined in a group of bipolar affectively ill patients. The lithium treatment group recalled significantly fewer words across trials on a verbal learning task than a group of bipolar affectively ill patients receiving no medication. The ability to consistently recall material for which prior learning had been demonstrated was also decreased and accounted for most of the variance in total number of words recalled. Possible mechanisms of effect are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Clinical implications of state-dependent learning.

Researchers have found that state-dependent learning is associated with the administration of a wide variety of drugs. Recent data suggest that similar phenomena may occur secondary to endogenous changes in neuroregulatory substances. The authors point out that awareness of such changes in cognitive processing strategies and abilities should help to further our understanding of the phenomenology of psychiatric states and should generate psychotherapeutic techniques designed to maximize the transfer of information across psychiatric states.

Animals↗
PubMed1979

d-Amphetamine: effects on memory in a depressed population.

The effect of intravenous d-amphetamine on memory functions in a group of depressed patients was examined in a double-blind placebo-controlled study. Active drug administration resulted in an increase in verbal free recall but no change in cued recall, suggesting specific effects on memory processes. The level of psychological processing of the presented stimulus was shown to interact with drug-induced facilitation of recall. Improvement in memory of more shallowly processed material under amphetamine related significantly to subjects' base-line indices of noradrenergic function. Drug-induced changes in mood did not correlate with improvement in cognitive functioning. The interrelationships between biochemical determinants of mood and memory are discussed in light of these findings.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1978

Human serial learning: enhancement with arecholine and choline impairment with scopolamine.

Arecholine (4 milligrams), a cholinergic agonist, and choline (10 grams), a precursor of acetylcholine, significantly enhanced serial learning in normal human subjects. The subjects received methscopolamine prior to both arecholine and placebo injections. Conversely, scopolamine (0.5 milligram), a cholinergic antagonist, impaired learning and this impairment was reversed by arecholine and choline and the impairment after scopolamine were inversely proportional to the subject's performance on placebo; that is, "poor" performers were more vulnerable to both the enhancing effect of cholinergic agonist and precursor and the impairment after cholinergic antagonist than "good" performers.

Acetylcholine↗
PubMed1978

Dextroamphetamine: cognitive and behavioral effects in normal prepubertal boys.

The behavioral, cognitive, and electrophysiological effect of a single dose of dextroamphetamine (0.5 milligram per kilogram of body weight) or placebo was examined in 14 normal prepubertal boys (mean age, 10 years 11 months) in a double-blind study. When amphetamine was given, the group showed a marked decrease in motor activity and reaction time and improved performance on cognitive tests. The similarity of the response observed in normal children to that reported in children with "hyperactivity" or minimal brain dysfunction casts doubt on pathophysiological models of minimal brain dysfunction which assume that children with this syndrome have a clinically specific or "paradoxical" response to stimulants.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗
PubMed1978

Huntington's dementia. Clinical and neuropsychological features.

The neuropsychiatric syndrome of Huntington's disease is outlined in this report with an emphasis on the cognitive deficits that lend themselves to future neurobehavioral research. Eighteen patients without disabling cognitive or psychiatric symptoms were evaluated for a period of 3 to 15 weeks, with assessment of their cognitive disorder, psychiatric, and neurological symptoms. Neuropsychological examination included repeated mental status examination, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), and, for some, parietal lobe testing. In addition to suffering from a loss of finely detailed memories, patients demonstrated impaired organizing, sequencing, planning, and recalling of information on request. On the WAIS, mean verbal and performance scores were not significantly different. Neuropsychological findings suggested that the Huntington's disease pattern of cognitive impairment is not initially diffuse and homogeneous, but characterized by a relative sparing of several higher cortical functions. Many patients had increased irritability and labile affect. The similarity of Huntington's disease to frontal lobe syndromes is also discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

An outline for the analysis of dementia. The memory disorder of Huntingtons disease.

Methods have been developed for assessing the cognitive parameters contributing to a memory disorder. Our findings suggest that individuals with Huntington disease have impairments in the encoding of new information and the consistent retrieval from storage of learned material. Their difficulties lie particularly in the realm of episodic memory.

Adult↗