Desglycinamide-9-arginine-8-vasopressin (DGAVP, Organon 5667) in patients with dementia.
Vasopressin peptides have been shown to facilitate learning and memory in both animals and humans; however, the effectiveness in humans is controversial. In a double blind parallel group study, 17 demented subjects (either Alzheimer's or alcoholic) were given either desglycinamide-9-arginine-8-vasopressin (DGAVP) 92 micrograms intranasally TID or an identical placebo for 1 week after having received 1 week of placebo. To our knowledge, this is the first report of DGAVP being used in subjects with dementia. The DGAVP group had a statistically significant improvement on the Buschke list learning of low imagery words. However, for various reasons discussed in the paper, we feel this finding needs to be replicated before any definite conclusions can be drawn. Since there were no other appreciable behavioral effects of this DGAVP regimen, our results should be considered negative. There was no evidence of any DGAVP-related adverse effects, except for possible weight gain.
D000339:Affect / Q000187:drug effects; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000150:complications*; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy*; D001127:Arginine Vasopressin / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003704:Dementia / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000187:drug effects; D008875:Middle Aged
D001127:Arginine Vasopressin; C015119:argipressin, des-GlyNH2(9)-