Toxic Psychosis from Sleeping Medicines Containing Scopolamine

Effect of Scopolamine on the Cerebral Accumulation of ¹⁴C-Catecholamines from ¹⁴C-Tyrosine

“…Although a very high dose of scopolamine would probably inhibit CA release, this level of drug intoxication, which almost certainly would produce CNS depression, does not seem pertinent to the psychotomimetic properties of scopolamine. Scopola mine-psychosis is usually associated with a fair degree of central stimulation (8,14,22,31), as was observed in these experiments. While it is difficult to corre late human and animal doses, the dose scale used in these experiments was thought to be compatible with the human dose necessary to produce a toxic reaction.…”

Handbook of Psychopharmacology

“…Combined with other medications, it produced "twilight sleep," with amnesia for painful experiences that might occur during its period of effectiveness (Gauss, 1906;Pandit and Dundee, 1970). More recently, there have been a number of clinical reports on toxic deliria caused by nonprescription sleeping preparations, primarily containing scopolamine (Bernstein and Leff, 1967;Beach et at., 1964). This has led to the concept that the central cholinergic system might playa significant role in human memory and cognitive function.…”

Treatment Approaches to Mania

“…According to this hypothesis, mania is the result of decreased acetylcholine with or without increase of NE. However, only decreased activity of acetylcholine produces delirium as evidenced by the delirium produced by various anticholinergic dmgs such as atropine, sleeping medications, scopalamine (Bernstein and Leff, 1967;Holzgirafe et al, 1973;Smiler et ai, 1973) antiasthmatics (Gowdy, 1972;Hussain, 1971), and antiparkinsonian agents (Ananth and Jain, 1973). On the other hand, antidepressants can produce either delirium (Davies et al, 1971;Noble and Mathew, 1969) or manic psychosis in depressed patients.…”