Abstract
1 Benzodiazepines possess anterograde amnesic properties, disrupting both short-term and long-term memory function.
2 The amount of amnesia is systematically related to dose effects and half-life differences among the benzodiazepines.
3 Memory deficits are found for episodic, semantic, and iconic memory function.
4 The deficits in long-term memory are probably the result of a disruption of consolidation of information in memory and not retrieval from memory. The disruption is produced by rapid sleep onset.
5 Thus the long-term amnesia is really a retrograde effect of sleep and not the anterograde effect of the drug.
Keywords: benzodiazepines, memory
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Selected References
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