Mainstream news sources are abuzz with the story that Stanford University neurobiologist Craig Garner and his colleagues compared the effects of pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) to picrotoxin and bilobalide on object recognition and maze learning of mice bred to have an analog of Down Syndrome. As they report in Nature Neuroscience, after a couple of weeks of receiving the drug, Professor Garner and his team found that the mice receiving PTZ not only did better than mice receiving the other compounds, but they performed as well as unimpaired mice on the learning tests. In addition, they found that the effects of the treatment lasted up to two months after treatment ended.
PTZ, which causes convulsions and has been used in shock therapy, is clearly a dangerous substance. It should not be administered to humans except with close medical supervision.
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