Neurophysiological Aspects of Gerontopsychopharmacotherapy

Abstract

Gerontopsychopharmacological agents are drugs with specific effects on the central nervous system (CNS) suggesting that they would be of particular value in the therapy of behavioral and mental disorders frequently occuring in the elderlies. However, as gerontopsychopharmacotherapy includes also the utilization of classical psychotropic drugs such as anxiolytics, antidepressants and neuroleptics (which were originally developed for a younger population), several synonyma have been suggested for these drugs such as nootropics, cerebral protectors, geriatrics, cerebral insufficiency improvers, antihypoxidotics, etc. Although most of these agents have found their way into gerontopsychopharmacotherapy based on some defined pharmacological action (for instance vaso-dilation, actions on brain metabolism, antithrombotic effects), they have one thing common: they act against cerebral hypoxidosis. Under “hypoxydosis” we understand since Strughold (1944) an impairment of the cerebral biological oxidation, which may be due to hypoxic, nutritive, histotoxic, ischemic or metabolic causes. The present paper describes changes in human brain function after the administration of antihypoxidotic drugs as measured objectively and quantitatively by computer-assisted spectral-analyzed EEG.