Clinical Pediatrics

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

SAGETRACK

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Faigel, H. C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Faigel, H. C.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Clinical Pediatrics, Vol. 30, No. 7, 441-445 (1991)
DOI: 10.1177/000992289103000706
© 1991 SAGE Publications

The Effect of Beta Blockade on Stress-Induced Cognitive Dysfunction in Adolescents

Harris C. Faigel, MD

University Health Services, Brandeis University

Test anxiety is severely disabling to students whose fear of examinations causes cognitive dysfunction that paralyzes their thinking the way stage fright impairs actors ability to act. In studies using subjective evaluations among actors and musicians, beta-blockade relieved stage fright and has been used informally to treat test anxiety in students without objective measures of effectiveness.

The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was chosen as an objective test instrument to confirm the effect of beta-blockade on test anxiety and performance. Thirty-two high school students who had already taken the SAT before enrolling in this study and who had stress-induced cognitive dysfunction on exams were given 40 mg of propranolol one hour before they retook those tests. Mean SAT scores with beta-blockade were 130 points higher than on the initial SAT done before entering the study without medication (p=<.01). A single dose of propranolol immediately before the SAT permitted improved performance in students prone to cognitive dysfunction due to test anxiety.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J. Cogn. Neurosci.Home page
J. K. Alexander, A. Hillier, R. M. Smith, M. E. Tivarus, and D. Q. Beversdorf
Beta-adrenergic Modulation of Cognitive Flexibility during Stress.
J. Cogn. Neurosci., March 1, 2007; 19(3): 468 - 478.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]