Are there any drugs with 'dementia-mimetic' effects?

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

There are drugs that are thought to have effects approximating those of psychosis, and I can attest to a few of those not being far off from textbook descriptions of psychotic episodes. There are certainly drugs that induce delirium. But are there any drugs which, temporarily and reversibly, induce a mindset thought to be similar to that of moderate to advanced Alzheimer's dementia?

Certainly no drug can reversibly mimic the exact effect of plaques building up in neurons, but I wonder how similar a state would be produced by simply shutting down just those regions and groups of brain cells that Alzheimer's tends to take out.

 

[any major dude]

high dose benzo's might be close ... Though I'm not sure an adequate description of the subjective experience of advanced dementia exists.

 

[rickolasnice]

Diphenhydramine messes with your memory.. i've taken a high dose which, for some reason, did not produce delerium effects.. only i couldn't hold on to my train of thought long enough to talk in sentences xP I'd literally forget the begining of sentences that people were saying to me by the end of them.. i had like a 3 seconds memory..

 

[fastandbulbous]

MK-801 sounds like a good candidate after reading trip reports...

It's just the anticholinergic effect of antihistamines that produce memory blockade, so any centrally active anticholinergic will block memory formation due to activity in the hippocampus

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

You know, thinking about it more, I think you guys are right on suggesting anticholinergics. Several drugs used to slow the progression of Alzheimer's dementia include cholinesterase inhibitors, which are therefore ACh enhancers. And I can attest to eating a large dose of lecithin every day -- which is pretty much like pouring a waterfall of ACh into your nervous system -- doing wonders for fluidity of thinking and memory.

I think if my aim was to induce a state resembling in as many ways as possible Alzheimer's dementia, I'd probably pick an anticholinergic that had as tolerable a side effect profile as possible, and if possible a gentle dose-response curve, and give a dose that was well above that for symptomatic relief for cholinergic / histaminergic / parasympathetic pathways, but below that for complete loss of touch with reality and constant full hallucinations. The memory loss and the thought disorganization would be the key things to reproduce, with some loss of frontal cortex, planning-judgement-decision making processes.

Hm... For some reason, inducing a schizophrenia-like state in myself didn't scare me. Only in retrospect, a bit. I did that in the name of getting a firsthand understanding of what my future schizophrenic and manic patients must feel like inside, and I do think it was helpful for that. I'll likely be seeing and treating a lot more Alzheimer's, though, than schizo or bipolar. Seems to me it would be helpful to know that feeling too, as long as the experience didn't permanently damage me physically or mentally. It's just that I really have no desire for an anticholinergic trip, especially since I would probably want a sitter for that one, and have no one I'd care to ask to see me through something like that.

F&B, the few extant reports on MK-801 leave me with no desire to try it.

 

[rickolasnice]

^ How did you manage to get yourself into a reversible schizophrenic state?

And why are you wanting to induce this upon yourself?

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^ Amphetamines plus sleep deprivation, extended DXM use, ketamine in certain sets and settings, and the L-Dopa containing plant Mucuna pruriens have all put me into states of mind and given me thoughts that are quite close to the psychotic mentations described in medical literature. M. pruriens also made me quite obsessive-compulsive, and DXM and ketamine have even induced the 'negative symptoms' of schizophrenia for me -- social withdrawl, depression, and blunted affect.

I did this for two reasons.

First, this syndrome has always given me a perverse fascination. In a strange way I envy schizophrenics -- the world may feel like a scary place for them, but such an inherently meaningful one, and their role in it so epically central. I find something 'tragically beautiful', if you will, about people whose thinking falls somewhere on the schizotypy spectrum, the way some people look at mentally retarded people and their (presumed) perpetual childlike innocence. I love and feel for schizotypal folks because they epitomize, to me, the exact opposite of everything I dislike about people who are uber rational and grounded-to-a-fault in consensual reality.

Secondly, and following from this, as a future doctor I'll be treating schizophrenics and other people with thinking patterns that fall under the category of schizotypy. I want to know firsthand what their mentations feel like. I don't want to see their mentations as odd and exotic, but rather as the excesses of healthy people's mentations that they actually are.

Simply put, I'm adventurous.

 

[rickolasnice]

Okey! Fair enough!

Just be careful xP

Amphetamine + Sleep deprivation = Paranoid delusions = Not nice.. not nice atall :'(

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^ Yeah I know. That one was about the least fun of the bunch.