Anticholinergics as neuroprotectives?

[Hyperreal]

'NMDA antagonist neurotoxicity: Mechanism and prevention' by Olney et al. From 'Science' 1991, Dec. 6


It says there that anticholinergics like scopolamine seem to completely block neurotoxicity caused by dissociatives.

we administered scopolamine intraperitoneally (ip) in various doses (0.01 to 5 mg per kilogram of body weight) 10 min after a subcutaneous (sc) dose of MK 801 (0.4 mg/kg) that reliably causes neurotoxic side effects in 100% of treated rats. We examined the brains after 4 hours and found that scopolamine completely prevented MK 801 neurotoxicity at doses >0.25 mg/kg.

It required 0.25 mg/kg ip scopolamine to prevent the neurotoxic side effects in 100% of treated rats (n = 6) after a relatively low dose of MK 801 (0.4 mg/kg sc); therefore, we treated adult rats with this dose of scopolamine plus a high dose of MK 801 (5 mg/kg sc) and found that it prevented the neurotoxic side effect in all animals (n = 6), whereas all controls (n = 6) that received the high dose of MK 801 by itself had a severe vacuole reaction in cingulate retrosplenial cortical neurons.

Ketalar (a commercial ketamine brand) contains benzthomium chloride, which is an anticholinergic. Is thisadded as a neuroprotective?


Does anyone know anything about this? Would it be possible to use anticholinergics to protect against the effects of recreational dissociative use without getting fucked up by the deliriant effects?