Abstract
The effects of two benzodiazepines, diazepam (15 or 20 mg orally) and lorazepam (1.75 or 2.5 mg orally), and a placebo on explicit memory, lexical priming and perceptual priming were assessed using a freerecall, a word-completion and a picture-completion test. The picture-completion test included two different study conditions intended to manipulate the magnitude of the priming effect. Sixty healthy volunteers took part in this double-blind study. Free-recall performances were altered by both drugs. Lorazepam impaired word-completion and picture-completion performance, whereas diazepam only exhibited a deleterious effect on the more sensitive of the two measures of the picture-completion test. These results indicate that the two benzodiazepines have differential amnestic effects. It is suggested that these differential effects could be accounted for by a different cortical distribution of the two benzodiazepines.
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Sellal, F., Danion, JM., Kauffmann-Muller, F. et al. Differential effects of diazepam and lorazepam on repetition priming in healthy volunteers. Psychopharmacology 108, 371–379 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02245126
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02245126