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Myslobodsky M, Weiner M. 
“Pharmacologic Implications of Hemispheric Asymmetry”. 
Life Sci.. 1976;19(10):1467-78.
Abstract
Evidence that the 2 hemispheres of the human brain show a fundamental difference in activity which play a role in personality and mental disease and the implication of these differences in drug response pattern is discussed. In general the left hemisphere is involved in language elaboration while the right is superior in spatial skills and they may have different modes of cognition and emotionality, During sleep the differences in hemispheric activity seen in an awake brain may be considerably changed. Inter-hemispheric EEG relationships are changed by amphetamine and D675 but not by chlorpromazine. Intra-carotid amobarbital when given on the left side produced depression but euphoria when given on the right side; opposite effects were seen in some subjects. The emotional state on taking a drug may influence the nature of the drug response; this occurs with LSD, pipradol, barbiturates, alcohol, phenothiazines and morphine. Brain pathology may have a selective effect in changing the reactivity of different hemispheres to drugs. Systemic drug therapy may be hemispherically selective in a number of ways including differences in degree and rate of drug uptake due to differences in neurohumoral turnover changed availability of receptor sites and differences in active transport. Other mechanisms which could explain selectivity include synaptic sensitivity, levels of bound cf. free neurohormones, The implications of hemispheric asymmetry in evaluating centrally active drugs is discussed.
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