title: Comparative amnesic and sedative effects of lorazepam and oxazepam in healthy volunteers.
abstract: Oxazepam and its chlorinated derivative, lorazepam, have similar half-lives but differing potencies. This study compared the effects of these two benzodiazepines with a placebo on memory, mood and psychomotor function. Thirty six volunteers took part in a double-blind, independent groups design. Subjects completed a battery of tests before and 2.5 h after drug administration. Lorazepam 2 mg produced more profound subjective and motor sedation than oxazepam 30 mg, and this in turn produced a similar, global pattern of impairments across a wide range of tasks. However, lorazepam produced greater decrements than oxazepam on a task involving episodic memory even when sedative effects were partialled out. We suggest that this finding may reflect either differential task sensitivities or a contribution of priming to performance on the explicit memory task.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychopharmacology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: H V
authors.initials: HV
authors.lastname: Curran
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gorenstein
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lader