The effects of intracerebroventricular (ICV) injection of ethylcholine aziridinium ion (AF64A) (3 nmole/2 microliter, each lateral ventricule), a putative selective cholinotoxin, on learning behaviors and choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity were studied in rats. AF64A-treated rats (AF64A-rat) exhibited deficient performance in a passive avoidance task and a delayed alternation task in the...

A wide range of evidence shows that acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors can interfere with the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The successful development of these compounds was based on a well-accepted theory that the decline in cognitive and mental functions associated with AD is related to the loss of cortical cholinergic neurotransmission. The earliest known AChE inhibitors, name...

This paper describes a clinical experiment performed by Drs Kleinwächter and Niemetschek in Prague in 1864, which showed for the first time that oral Calabar bean extract (which contains physostigmine) reverses the toxic effects of atropine. Kleinwächter’s original paper is translated from the German. This paper relates the earliest known account of the use of physostigmine (as an extract of Ca...

This study was of 135 patients with a complete spinal cord section suffered from loss of ejaculation. The spinal cord injuries were classified following the upper and the lower limits of the lesion. The volume of the testes of the patients and of 13 normal control subjects were measured. Physostigmine allowed 75 patients to ejaculate and 15 of them procreated. The possibility of ejaculation aft...

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE There has been increasing interest in the role of cholinomimetic agents in the long-term management of cognitive impairment following traumatic brain injury. This paper aims to assess the evidence accumulated thus far. METHODS Studies are identified by searching MEDLINE, EMBASE and PsychINFO, contacting experts and pharmaceutical companies and hand searching bibliographies. ...

A wide range of evidence show that acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors can interfere with the progression of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). The successful development of these compounds was based on a well-accepted theory that the decline in cognitive and mental functions associated with AD is related to the loss of cortical cholinergic neurotransmission. The earliest known AChE inhibitors, namel...