Medicinal Herb May Help Cognitive Dysfunction in Bipolar Disorder
Many patients with bipolar disorder experience cognitive deficits that impede their recovery and that persist during times of wellness. In a double-blind placebo-controlled study by K. N. Roy Chengappa et al. published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2013, the herb Withania somnifera (WSE, commonly called ashwagandha and sold under the name Sensoril) was significantly better than placebo at improving patients’ performance on three different cognitive tasks.
In the eight-week study, 53 patients took either 500 mg of WSE or placebo in addition to their regular medications.
The herb, which has traditionally been used in Ayurvedic medicine in India as an aid to resisting stress and disease, improved performance on digit span backwards (a test of short-term memory in which the subject must repeat a sequence of numbers backwards), Flanker neutral (a test of response time in which a subject must repress their instinct to give an incorrect response), and the Penn Emotional Acuity Test (which requires subjects to correctly identify facial emotions depicted in photographs).
Mood and anxiety levels were not different for the group taking WSE and the group taking placebo.
The researchers hope to continue their investigation of WSE with larger and longer-term studies that will explore the effects of different doses of WSE.
