ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION Dose effects of triazolam on brain activity during episodic memory encoding: a PET study

Rationale Although it is well established that acute benzodiazepine administration impairs episodic memory encoding, little is known about the neuroanatomical substrates of this effect. Objective The objective was to examine the acute dose effects of the benzodiazepine hypnotic triazolam on brain activity during episodic memory encoding. Methods After oral capsule administration (placebo, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.4 mg/70 kg triazolam), regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured using positron emission tomography (PET) with 15O–H2O during performance of semantic categorization and orthographic categorization tasks in a double-blind, within-subject design in 12 healthy volunteers. The rCBF associated with episodic memor