A Pilot Study of Low-Dose L-Deprenyl in Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

The use of low-dose L-deprenyl, a selective MAO-B inhibitor, in Alzheimer's disease patients has been associated previously with improvements in agitation and episodic learning and memory. Behavioral, cognitive, and regional electroencephalogram (EEG) measures were obtained in a 4-week open pilot study of 14 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease by NINCDS criteria who were administered 10 mg L-deprenyl per day. L-Deprenyl administration was associated with significant improvements on the agitation and depression factors of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia, and spouses' blind ratings. Recall improved on the Buschke Selective Reminding Task, but intrusions also tended to increase; verbal fluency decreased. Absolute EEG delta measures were selectively suppressed in the right frontal region. The pattern of changes suggests that L-deprenyl may be associated with improvement in behavioral and cognitive performance, in part through a mild behavioral disinhibiting effect.

Monoamine neurons in aging and Alzheimer's disease

“…Low dose L-deprenyl was more effective (Schneider et al, 1991) than nonselective inhibitors MAO-A and MAO-B (Tariot et al, 1987 a, b). This suggests that at least early in the disease process, selective inhibition of MAO-B may correct or normalize imbalances in dopaminergic and possibly noradrenergic neurotransmission.…”

The effect of selegiline in the treatment of people with Alzheimer's disease: a meta‐analysis of published trials

“…The reasons for this were various, namely the absence of a placebo control group (Martini et al, 1987;Campi et al, 1990;Falsaperla et al, 1990;Monteverde et al, 1990;Goad et al, 1991;Martignoni et al, 1991;Schneider et al, 1991;Alhainen, 1994) non-randomisation (Tariot et al, 1987;Tariot et al, 1988), and confounding medication, e.g. other cholinergic agonists administered to a subset of patients (Schneider et al, 1993;Marin et al, 1995).…”

Clinical Profile of Alzheimer’s Disease Non-Responder Patient

“…Many variables (genetic, metabolic, vascular, biochemical, etc) may be considered responsible for pharmacological treatment un-efficacy, and in recent years several studies investigated the importance of these factors. Among others, as possible predictors to treatment response were included cognitive impairment severity (Pakrasi et al, 2003;Van Der Putt et al, 2006;Wallin et al, 2005 and, frontal lobe blood flow (Hanyu et al, 2003), age (Schneider et al, 1991;Evans et al, 2000), gender (Macgowan et al, 1998;Winblad et al, 2001), APOE genotype (Almkvist et al, 2001;Winblad et al, 2001). Unfortunately conflicting results were obtained, and reliable predictors are still unavailable.…”