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The effects of single-dose lorazepam on memory and behavioural learning

School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Australia

Kenneth C. Kirkby

Discipline of Psychiatry, University of Tasmania, Australia

Frances Martin

School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Australiaxs

To assess the influence of lorazepam on memory and behavioural learning, a non-clinical sample of undergraduate psychology students (n= 24), received lorazepam (2.5 mg) or placebo orally. Pre-drug and post-drug neuropsychological assessment comprised the Rey auditory verbal learning test, verbal fluency test, digit span and word stem completion. Relative to placebo, lorazepam induced a marked deficit in delayed free-recall, perceptual priming, and written word fluency, with preservation of digit span. Behavioural learning was assessed on a computer-aided vicarious exposure treatment for obsessive–compulsive disorder, administered post-drug, and repeated 1 week later, drug free. Compared to placebo, lorazepam treated participants enacted 51% less exposure activity on the behavioural learning task post-drug. Whilst both groups enacted increased exposure at the drug-free session, exposure activity was 49% less in the lorazepam group, indicating a carryover effect of the impaired learning under drug 1 week before. There were no significant differences between lorazepam and placebo on indices of overall activity on the program. These results suggest lorazepam-induced impairment in the ability to learn behavioural strategies, possibly due to impaired acquisition of information into long-term episodic memory. These findings suggest caution in the co-prescribing of benzodiazepines in people undergoing behavioural therapies in clinical populations.

Key Words: behavioural learning • benzodiazepine • computer-aided treatments • explicit momery • implicit memoy • lorazepa

Journal of Psychopharmacology, Vol. 16, No. 4, 345-354 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/026988110201600409


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