No evidence exists at present to support the use of amphetamine after stroke .
INTRODUCTION The use of drugs to enhance recovery ( " rehabilitation pharmacology " ) has been assessed .
Amphetamine can improve outcome in experimental models of stroke , and several small clinical trials have assessed its use in stroke .
Regional cerebral blood flow response to oral amphetamine challenge in healthy volunteers.
UNLABELLED Functional brain imaging is a powerful tool for examining the central nervous system ( CNS ) response to pharmacologic challenges . Amphetamine is of interest both because of its role as a stimulant of the dopaminergic system and because of its use to alter mood in mood-disordered patients , particularly in patients suffering from depression . In this study , we report the effects of oral D-amphetamine relative to placebo on regional cerebral blood flow ( rCBF ) measured by SPECT in healthy volunteers to characterize the normal CNS response to this primarily dopaminergic stimulant . METHODS SPECT was used to assess changes in rCBF induced by amphetamine in 16 healthy volunteers . Subjects received placebo and then 0.4 mg/kg oral amphetamine in a fixed-order single-blind design and were imaged on a triple-head tomograph . Another six healthy volunteers received placebo at both times to assess normal rCBF variability . rCBF changes were assessed with a three-dimensional voxel-based analysis integrated into an automated co registration system . Data were automatically normalized to whole-brain counts and coregistered . Result ant rCBF changes were evaluated parametrically through the formation of an image whose voxel values were based on the paired t statistic . RESULTS Amphetamine increased rCBF in two mesial prefrontal zones ( Brodmann 's areas 8 and 10 ) , inferior orbital frontal lobe ( area 11 ) , brain stem ( ventral tegmentum ) , anteromesial temporal lobe ( amygdala ) , and anterior thalamus . Amphetamine decreased rCBF to motor cortex , visual cortex , fusiform gyrus , posterolateral temporal lobe , and right lateral temporal lobe . CONCLUSION Our data suggest that amphetamine induces focal increases and decreases in rCBF in healthy volunteers in areas primarily innervated by dopamine pathways and in areas with secondary ( primarily limbic ) affiliations . These data are consistent with glucose metabolic data from autoradiographic studies in animals , in which the largest increases are seen in brain stem , followed by striatum , thalamus , and frontal and sensory cortices . Frontopolar and temporal increases observed in our study appear to be unique to humans
No evidence exists at present to support the use of amphetamine after stroke .
INTRODUCTION The use of drugs to enhance recovery ( " rehabilitation pharmacology " ) has been assessed .
Amphetamine can improve outcome in experimental models of stroke , and several small clinical trials have assessed its use in stroke .