[Beta blockers as psychotropic drugs]

Abstract

The range of indications for beta blocking substances has extended to various fields of pathology : vascular system, endocrinology... The discovery of some of their side effects give good reasons to try to find out whether they should have a place in psychopharmacotherapy and wheter they could meet its present requirements. The initial target symptoms were anxiety--which, being polymorphous, can be, at various degrees, reactionnal to obviously stressing surroundings, but which is also implied by structural distortions of personality--and psychosomatic manifestations. If their site of actions was initially thought peripherical, it now seems that their action is also central, genuinely psychotropic, anxiolytic, and non sedative, psychoanaleptic and, at the same time, stimulating and increasing the level of attention (we have observed in some cases a reduction of sleep time)--thymoanaleptic, increasing the incitement to action. On the other hand, they quiet certain excitation states caused by appearence of badly controled anxieties. This study contains three series of experiments conceived with a similar methodology.