EVEN healthy people show striking improvements in memory after a month on an Alzheimer’s drug.
Jerome Yesavage at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California and his colleagues studied 18 airline pilots with a mean age of 52. In seven 75-minute practice flights on a simulator, the pilots were trained to perform a complex set of manoeuvres.
For the next 30 days, the pilots took either a placebo or the Alzheimer’s drug donepezil, which blocks the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. They then flew two more flights in the simulator. The donepezil pilots performed just as well as before…
