A drug commonly used to treat methamphetamine overdoses may cause brain damage in patients, Psych Central reported May 30.

Rat studies showed that the combination of methamphetamine and the medication, haloperidol, increased the risk of seizures and movement-related disorders; the drug combination killed off brain cells and led to an increase of toxic glutamate in the substantia nigra region of the brain, which controls movement.

"This work in laboratory animals raises immediate concerns that a standard treatment for methamphetamine overdose in humans might worsen drug abuse-related brain injuries," said William Carlezon, Ph.D., of McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. "A crucial next step is to determine how atypical antipsychotic medications would affect methamphetamine toxicity in the same model."

The research by Bryan Yamamoto, Ph.D., and colleagues at Boston University School of Medicine was published in the May 30, 2007 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.