Schuepbach Daniel, Hill S Kristian, Sanders Richard D, Hell Daniel, Keshavan Matcheri S, Sweeney John A
Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, PO Box 68, CH-8029 Zurich, Switzerland.
Schizophr Bull. 2004;30(4):837-48. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.schbul.a007136.
Studying neuroleptic-naive first episode schizophrenia is a strategy for investigating clinical and neuropsychological abnormalities at a very early phase of the disease without confounding influences of illness duration and medication effects. We examined the clinical and neuropsychological time course over 2 years in 32 neuroleptic-naive first episode patients (20 males, 12 females) and 21 healthy individuals with similar sociodemographic characteristics. Early treatment-induced reduction of negative symptoms predicted superior cognitive performance throughout followup in the domains of verbal fluency, attention, and non-verbal learning and memory. There were no associations between psychotic or disorganized symptoms and cognitive variables. These findings suggest an important relationship between treatment efficacy of antipsychotic medication and the longer term course of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.
研究未使用过抗精神病药物的首发精神分裂症是一种在疾病极早期调查临床和神经心理学异常的策略，不存在病程和药物效应的混杂影响。我们对32例未使用过抗精神病药物的首发患者（20例男性，12例女性）和21例具有相似社会人口学特征的健康个体进行了为期2年的临床和神经心理学时间进程研究。早期治疗引起的阴性症状减轻预示着在随访期间，在言语流畅性、注意力以及非言语学习和记忆领域的认知表现更优。精神病性或紊乱症状与认知变量之间没有关联。这些发现表明抗精神病药物的治疗效果与精神分裂症认知缺陷的长期病程之间存在重要关系。
