D-cycloserine + distributed treatment

D-cycloserine + distributed treatment is an experimental combination therapy investigated by the US Department of Veterans Affairs for stroke rehabilitation. It consists of the small molecule drug D-cycloserine administered as an adjuvant to a distributed schedule of constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT), leveraging the spacing effect to enhance motor learning. D-cycloserine acts as a competitive agonist at the glycine binding site of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptor, promoting NMDA receptor function to facilitate synaptic plasticity and long-term potentiation. The distributed treatment component involves spreading physical therapy sessions over a longer duration (e.g., 10 weeks) rather than condensing them into a short period. Clinical trials evaluated whether this combination could improve arm function recovery in chronic stroke patients, although results indicated that D-cycloserine did not yield significantly greater motor gains compared to placebo when combined with CIMT.

Other names

distributed treatment-US Department of Veterans Affairs-strokeD-cycloserine + distributed practiceD-cycloserine + distributed CIMTD-cycloserine and Spacing Effect in Stroke Rehabilitation