Despite much progress in stroke prevention and acute intervention, recovery
and rehabilitation have traditionally received relatively little scientifi
c attention. There is now increasing interest in the development of stroke
recovery drugs and innovative rehabilitation techniques to promote function
al recovery after completed stroke. Experimental work over the past two dec
ades indicates that pharmacologic intervention to enhance recovery may be p
ossible in the subacute stage, days to weeks poststroke, after irreversible
injury has occurred, This paper discusses the concept of "rehabilitation p
harmacology" and reviews the growing literature from animal studies and pil
ot clinical trials on noradrenergic pharmacotherapy, a new experimental str
ategy in stroke rehabilitation, Amphetamine, a monoamine agonist that incre
ases brain norepinephrine levels, is the most extensively studied drug show
n to promote recovery of function in animal models of focal brain injury. F
urther research is needed to investigate the mechanisms and clinical effica
cy of amphetamine and other novel therapeutic interventions on the recovery
process.