Conditions: Cocaine Abuse
Keywords: cognitive enhancers Nootropic Agents
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 34
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
To evaluate galantamine's effects on cognitive performance in abstinent cocaine users. Galantamine, a medication approved for treatment of Alzheimer's disease, is an acetylcholine esterase inhibitor. Galantamine also directly potentiates nicotine receptors. Both of these effects may result in improved cognitive performance in a group of subjects known to have impaired performance in various cognitive tasks.

Detailed description:
Galantamine, compared to placebo, will improve cognitive performance in abstinent cocaine users. The cognitive performance will be measured with the Stroop test and 3 Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) tests: Paired Associate Learning (PAL), Delayed Pattern Recognition Memory (PRM),and Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP). Performance on these tests has been shown to be impaired in abstinent cocaine users, compared to healthy controls.

Galantamine, compared to placebo, will not be associated with any significant changes in mood. Monitoring of mood will be achieved with 3 mood scales: 1) Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS).

Currently this study is completed, Patients are no longer being enrolled. There were 28 completers. This study has been published.

Arms:
arm 1: Galantamine 8 mg/day arm 2: placebo

Interventions: intervention 1: Galantamine intervention 2: placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Galantamine 8 mg/day intervention 2: sugar pill

Protocol document: