Am J Psychiatry 1977; 134:769-774
Copyright © 1977 by American Psychiatric Association
Cholinergic influences in tardive dyskinesia
CA Tamminga, RC Smith, SE Ericksen, S Chang and JM Davis
The authors conducted placebo-controlled double-blind studies of
physostigmine, choline, and deanol in 12 patients with tardive dyskinesia.
Physostigmine and choline both had a positive therapeutic effect on tardive
dyskinesia, but the authors note that interpretation of these results is
not entirely clear because they found that the sedation effect of
physostigmine may nonspecifically reduce the intensity of tardive
dyskinesia symptoms. Deanol was not found to be effective in this group of
patients; the authors suggest that this drug should not be assumed to be
generally effective unless effectiveness is verified by a large
placebo-controlled double-blind study.
