Cognitive enhancers: potential strategies and experimental results.

1. Cognitive impairments follow natural processes such as aging, diseases, exposure to neurotoxins, and traumatic injury. In all of these instances, the brain possesses some capability for recovery. 2. A cognitive enhancer is any compound that will help this recovery occur more rapidly, or increase the final level of performance. 3. This chapter describes the types of strategies that can be used to develop a cognitive enhancer with emphasis on studies of the cholinergic system.