Noradrenergic activity is associated with response to pindolol in aggressive Alzheimer's disease patients.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Growth Hormone and Pindolol.

Loss of noradrenergic (NE) neurones in the locus ceruleus and compensatory changes in NE activity have been described in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but have never been linked to treatment.

The hypothesis of this study was that central NE responsivity would predict aggression response to treatment with a NE medication, pindolol.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are older adults and people over 80, men only.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Growth Hormone group and the comparison group should start out alike.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Growth Hormone could be set against what happens without it.

Each person switched between Growth Hormone and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

What Was Measured

The primary outcome measure was change on the retrospective Overt Aggression Scale (r-OAS).

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Aggression, Alzheimer Disease, Behavioral Symptoms, Capsules, Clonidine, Drug Synergism and Growth Hormone.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study of Growth Hormone and Pindolol.

The publication is from 2004 (Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)), a journal based in United States.

More context: the related Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) library page, all human trials.