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M. A. Gillman; F. J. Lichtigfeld; R. Sandyk
8 Highlands House (NBS Center) 173 Lewis Botha Ave Orange Grove 2192, South Africa

Arch Neurol. 1984;41(7):704.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The case of subacute toxic delirium following nitrous oxide (N₂O) abuse¹ is the second well-documented case in the literature.² In both cases, some of the symptoms appeared to be identical to those found in other well-known opioid and alcohol withdrawal states. It does not appear to be well known that N₂O is an opioid agonist. This has been demonstrated both in vitro^3,4 and in vivo.^5-8 In addition, a close link between an opioid withdrawal state and N₂O was clearly demonstrated by Kripke and Hechtman,⁹ who showed that a patient with a pentazocine addiction could be successfully weaned with analgesic concentrations of N₂O. Furthermore, we have shown that N₂O can ameliorate the alcohol withdrawal state,¹⁰ and this cross-tolerance has been demonstrated experimentally as well.¹¹

We therefore consider that this interesting case . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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