Akinetic mutism is a condition in which the person is alert but cannot speak or move.

A new study led by Christine Brefel-Courbon, M.D. of the University Hospital in Toulouse, France, demonstrated that treatment with the insomia drug zolpidem temporarily improved brain function in a patient suffering from akinetic mutism.

The said patient is a 48 year-old woman who developed akinetic mutism due to oxygen deprivation to her brain following an attempted suicide by hanging - totally dependent, unable to speak or walk, and was using a feeding tube for nourishment but was able to understand single words.

The results showed that after receiving zolpidem, the patient was able to stand up and walk, repeat words and sentences, read words, and name objects, although she was not able to speak spontaneously. Administration of the drug increased brain metabolism, and PET scans also showed improvement in cerebral areas involved in motivational processing.

While zolpidem has previously shown positive effects on catatonic conditions, according to the authors of the study, this is the first study assessing the impact of zolpidem of post-anoxic brain injury using the modern methodological standards of clinical pharmacology.

The authors postulate that the mechanism may be due to an activation of neural circuits in the brain that control movement and verbal expression, but that the lesions that occurred due to oxygen deprivation may have been too severe to allow spontaneous speech.

Results of the single patient-trial are published in the March 2007 issue of Annals of Neurology, the official journal of the American Neurological Association.

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