Differential effects of D2- and D4-blocking neuroleptics on the procedural learning of schizophrenic patients.

OBJECTIVE

To illustrate the differential effects of D2- and D4-blocking neuroleptics on the procedural learning of patients with schizophrenia.

METHOD

Twenty-nine schizophrenic patients were divided into 3 groups according to their pharmacological treatment: 1) drug naive, 2) haloperidol, and 3) clozapine. They were all assessed on clinical and procedural measures, the latter being the mirror drawing task.

RESULTS

All groups showed progressive learning over the successive trials, and drug-naive patients performed better than the other groups. Patients in the haloperidol group showed many fluctuations over trials, suggesting difficulty in the progressive automation of the task. Such fluctuations did not occur in the clozapine group, but performances per se were worse than in the other groups during the learning trials. Automation of the task occurred at the same point (second block of trials) for all groups.

CONCLUSION

These results suggest that D2- and D4-blocking neuroleptics do not similarly affect striatal dependent procedural learning in schizophrenia.