Home » acetylcholine » Recent Articles:

Memory and Medications

October 14, 2008 Brain Fitness, Cognitive abilities, Uncategorized No Comments

One of the most important things I do for patients with memory problems isn’t giving them medicines. It’s actually taking them away.
Some common medications, even those that you can buy without a prescription, can have a negative effect on your memory and alertness. And some medicines that are completely safe in younger people have bad effects in older persons. One of the best things you can do for your memory is go over your medications with someone who knows about medicines and how they affect older persons.
Medications that may have a negative effect on memory are those that have anticholinergic effects. They act to decrease the effectiveness of a brain chemical called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is a brain chemical that is essential in memory. The part of the brain with the most nerve cells that use this chemical is one of the first affected when someone has Alzheimer’s disease.

Probably the most commonly used medication used by older persons that has anticholinergic effects is the antihistamine Benadryl,® It’s a perfectly good medicine, but in its generic form diphenhydramine it’s in many over-the-counter sleep medicines. If you have memory problems and take this medicine regularly, you might want to try stopping it and see how your memory functions without it.
Another group of medications that can affect memory are the benzodiazepines. These are commonly-used medicines for anxiety and sleep such as Xanax,® Ativan,® Klonopin,® and many others. They can affect memory in a different way from diphenhydramine. If you’re taking one of these medicines regularly, it usually isn’t a good idea to stop taking it suddenly. You might want to talk to your doctor about alternative medicines for anxiety and sleep.

Subscribe to MB Fitness


Subscribe and Get Email Updates for Every Article

You'll have each new article delivered directly to your inbox, and won't miss a single brain fitness update.

Enter your e-mail address in the form below. You'll receive a verification e-mail and will start receiving updates right away.

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

RSS Worry and GAD Blog

  • Brain Fitness and The Mind of a Monk
    the contrast between Tibetan monks’ apparent calm, evident even on brain scans, and her own anxiety disorder. Ms. Warner says that she suffers from panic disorder, […]
  • Do GAD and Depression Overlap?
    Are generalized anxiety disorder and depression the same thing? New research says probably not. […]
  • Simple Ways to Cope with Anxiety without Medications
    With all the uncertainty in the economy, more and more people are asking about how to manage anxiety. Although several types of medications can be helpful in coping with anxiety, some of them (drugs in the group of benzodiazepines, such as Valium, Xanax, and Ativan) can actually have a negative impact on your memory. Other […]

Brain Fitness

Brain Fatigue

Man sleeping on grass

An article in today’s New York Times reports on the ways that being constantly online can affect cognition. More and more research has shown that learning depends on not only on spending time with new material, but also on having downtime. Researchers have long suspected that some form of downtime …

Training Affects Cerebral Blood Flow

iStock_000004392166Small.jpg

A report from researchers now has shown that cognitive training can increase blood flow to parts of the brain critical for attention and memory. The report in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (March 12, 2010) used functional MRI to evaluate how a training program affected gray matter thickness and resting blood …

Physical Activity and Cognitive Impairment

mi6

A new study shows that physical activity may reduce the risk of developing cognitive impairment. The INVADE study, completed almost 4,000 people older than 55 years, showed that people who engaged in some form of physical activity three times a week or more were less likely to develop memory problems …

Is Overtime Hazardous to Your Health?

Stressful commuting in a subway

Lots of people work more than 40 hours a week. Now a major British study shows that large amounts of overtime work is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease. Since to a large extent heart health is also brain health, it looks as though overtime work might …

Meditation as Brain Training

mi19

Mindfulness meditation as practiced over a long period by experts makes clear changes in someone’s brain function. But what about those of us who don’t have a few years to sit in a monastery in the Himalayas? A new study shows that even brief meditation practice can improve attention. Researchers …