Recent psychopharmacological studies lend support to the notion of partially dissociable neuronal systems dedicated to processing specific emotions. For example, GABA-ergic enhancement after an acute dose of the benzodiazepine, diazepam, produces specific impairments in anger and fear recognition. However, it is unclear if these impairments are a general property of benzodiazepines and other drugs that produce a similar profile of neurocognitive impairment to benzodiazepines, such as the anticholinergic, scopolamine.', 'We investigated the effects of scopolamine and the benzodiazepine, lorazepam, on emotion-recognition accuracy.', 'A double-blind independent group design was used with 48 healthy volunteers to compare the effects of scopolamine and lorazepam with an inactive placebo on a commonly used emotion-recognition task. Control measures included an episodic memory task and subjective mood ratings.', 'Anger and disgust recognition accuracy was impaired after scopolamine. In contrast, lorazepam produced no impairment in emotion-recognition despite producing similar levels of sedation and anterograde amnesia to scopolamine.
Does scopolamine induce impairments in the recognition of human facial expressions of anger and disgust?