Gabapentin Enhances the Recovery of Attention and Short‐Term Memory in Alcoholics

ORIGINAL Article

Gabapentin Enhances the Recovery of Attention and Short‐Term Memory in Alcoholics

Fernando A Furieri¹, Roney WD de Oliveira² and Ester M Nakamura-Palacios²

Affiliations: ¹Vitoria Municipal Addiction Treatment Center, ES, Brazil and ²Department of Physiological Sciences, Health Science Center, Federal University of Espırito Santo, Vitoria, ES, Brazil


ABSTRACT

Objective
This study examined the effects of 28 days of gabapentin treatment on cognitive tasks measuring attention, short‐term memory, logical memory, and executive functions in alcoholics.
Method
A randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trial was performed in a Brazilian public outpatient drug treatment center, with 60 male alcohol‐dependent subjects (mean age 44 years, average 27 years of alcohol use, consuming 17 drinks per day over the past 90 days before baseline) with no other significant medical or psychiatric condition. After the detoxification treatment, 30 subjects were randomly assigned to receive gabapentin (300 mg twice daily) for 4 weeks, and 30 subjects, with similar baseline characteristics, received matching placebo tablets for the same period. Both groups had some of their cognitive functions examined by a short battery of tests before and after placebo or gabapentin treatment.
Results
After 28 days, the gabapentin group showed a statistically significant improvement in verbal attention examined by the Digit Span test in its forward task, and also in verbal and visuospatial short‐term memory examined by the Digit Span and Corsi Block‐Tapping tests, respectively, in their backward tasks. The gabapentin group also showed an improvement on prose recall measured by immediate and delayed tasks in the logical memory test. However, impairments in executive functions examined by the Wisconsin Sorting Card test were not changed after 4 weeks of treatment.
Conclusion
Gabapentin treatment for 4 weeks may have enhanced the recovery of verbal attention and verbal and visuospatial short‐term memory in chronic alcoholics.

Keywords: gabapentin, alcohol, attention, short-term memory, executive functions
Correspondence: Ester M Nakamura-Palacios, Laboratory of Neuropsychopharmacology,
Department of Physiological Sciences, Health Science Center, Federal University of Espırito Santo, Av. Marechal Campos, 1468 B. Maruıpe, Vitoria, ES, Brazil.
Tel: (55)-27-3335-7337; Fax:(55)-27-3335-7330; e-mail: ester.palacios@terra.com.br