The possibility that
nerve agents will be used on the battlefield is real. The traditional
therapy against
nerve agent exposure consists of
pyridostigmine pretreatment and
atropine-
pralidoxime chloride therapy administered after
nerve agent exposure. This
therapy regimen is extremely effective in preventing mortality in laboratory animals exposed to multilethal concentrations of
nerve agent, yet these animals often display convulsions, brain damage, and behavioral incapacitation. We report here that the addition of
diazepam to the traditional
therapy for
nerve agent (
soman) exposure not only decreases the incidence of convulsions, but also attenuates the
cognitive impairments of rhesus monkeys trained on a Serial Probe Recognition (SPR) task. Monkeys which received
diazepam treatment required only 6 days before their performance on the SPR task returned to presoman exposure levels, compared to nondiazepam-treated monkeys which required 15 days. Moreover, only 1 out of the 5 monkeys which received
diazepam treatment suffered
tonic-clonic convulsions; in contrast all 5 monkeys which did not receive
diazepam treatment experienced severe convulsive episodes. These results suggest that
diazepam would be an excellent adjunct to traditional
nerve agent therapy to facilitate behavioral recovery from
nerve agent intoxication that might be encountered by US military personnel on the battlefield or accidental
organophosphate poisoning encountered in industrial or agricultural accidents.