Thursday, April 06, 2006

Interesting meetings on medication

Holger Stenzel sent me these interesting meeting dates on medication.

ASHA SID 4 Leadership Conference, May 31 - June 3, 2006, San Antonio, TX.
Blomgren, M. (2006). Pharmacologic treatments of stuttering: Recent research and current findings. Invited presentation.

46th Annual New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit (NCDEU) Meeting, June 12-15, 2006, Boca Raton, FL.
Maguire, G., Riley, G., Franklin, D., Blomgren, M., Soni, P., Yaruss, S., Denko, T., Davis, L., Davis, A., Silverman, A., Sabounjian, L., & Shipley, J. (2006). Enhancing precision in clinical trials: Methodological issues in assessing the pharmacologic treatment of stuttering.

5TH WORLD CONGRESS ON FLUENCY DISORDERS, 25 – 28th July, 2006, Dublin, Ireland
Gerald Maguire, Glyndon Riley and David Franklin
Pharmacologic Strategies in the Treatment of Stuttering
Abstract: Stuttering is classified in the psychiatric nomenclature of DSM-IV. In spite of such, relatively little research has been conducted into possible psychopharmacologic treatments. Clinical trials utilizing double-blind, placebo-controlled designs have found that novel dopamine blocking agents are effective in reducing the severity of stuttering but are associated with significant side-effects. The most comprehensive pharmacologic trial to date in stuttering has recently been completed and evaluated the efficacy and safety of pagoclone, a novel nonbenzodiazepine GABA partial agonist with a unique mechanism and the potential to provide a favorable safety profile. Data from this multi-center, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial will be presented.

National Stuttering Association
Annual Conference 2006, June 28 - July 1, 2006 in Long Beach, California.
Keynote speaker:
Dr. Maguire will discuss with his fellow NSA members not only the latest in research investigating pharmacologic treatments for stuttering but also his own personal journey as a person who stutters.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom.
I posted the below in another comments section, but didn't receive a reply, so I'm re-posting. It's a question I've been puzzling over: could I ask you to comment?
Carl

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Tom,

I've checked your blog a few times in the last months. I'm interested in many of the same questions you are, and think understanding how the brain works is going to be the biggest thing since agriculture, and not only for stutterers. I'd like a post on how you see the general relation between neuroscience and that oldest guide to how the mind works, introspection. Surely the only way to even design and understand experiments is coming at them from both angles? Anyway, a post on that would be interesting.

On the specific question of stuttering, I've often noticed (through introspection) that when my mind races and I have a hard time focusing, I stutter; when I force myself to say one-word-after-another, cancelling all blocks with great deliberation, I seemingly stutter more badly for the first seconds, and then, if I allow my mind to slow down and go into synch with my speech, I'm completely fluent. This is all at a very slow pace. If I continue with that, resisting my extremely strong urges to lose focus on a single thought-process, and see each word in my mind before I say it, it becomes easier within a few minutes, and I can speed up just a bit. If I continue this with various strangers throughout the day (also using breathing techniques), I'm almost completely fluent by the end of the day. The urge of the mind to skip back into its default, unfocused, stuttering "track" remains, but will presumably lesson or go away with time.

So that's the introspection side of things. Any way to relate that first-hand report to neuroscience (to approach the problem from the other angle)?

All best,
Carl

Tom Weidig said...

Sorry Carl,

I did read your post, but forgot about it.

I'll answer asap.

If not, keep on posting!

Tom

Anonymous said...

Hi Tom,
I am a middle aged woman on Pagoclone trial.I have mixed feelings about it (as well as mixed results)! Having been trained and worked as a researcher I could not pass the opportunity to trial this medication and they claimed it was not addictive (when I started). Now new work is questioning that assertion. So I am worried. I'll let you know.. I have about 6 months more to go..
Regards from USA