User:Scarito/sandbox

Research[edit]
Hyoscine (scopolamine) is used as a pharmacological research tool to study memory encoding. Initially, in human trials, it was found that relatively low doses of the muscarinic receptor antagonist, scopolamine, induced temporary cognitive defects. Since then, scopolamine has become a standard drug for experimentally inducing cognitive defects in animals. Hyoscine produces detrimental effects on short term memory, memory acquisition, learning, visual recognition memory, visuospatial praxis, visuospatial memory, visuoperceptual function, verbal recall and psychomotor speed. However, scopolamine does not seem to impair recognition and memory retrieval. Acetylcholine projections in hippocampal neurons, which are vital mediating in mediating Long term potentiation, are inhibited by scopolamine  .Hyoscine also inhibits cholinergic mediated glutamate release in hippocampal neurons which assist in depolarization, potentiation of action potential, and synaptic suppression. Hyoscine's effects on acetylcholine and glutamate release in the hippocampus favors retrieval dominant cognitive functioning .Hyoscine has been used to model the defects in cholinergic function for models of Alzheimer’s, dementia, fragile X syndrome and down syndrome.

Hyoscine has also been investigated as a rapid-onset antidepressant with a number of small studies finding positive results.