Prefrontal cognitive deficits in patients with schizophrenia treated with atypical or conventional antipsychotics.
Forty-three patients with schizophrenia were investigated with a short neurocognitive screening battery focussing on working memory and executive functions. As compared to healthy controls, patients showed impairments in the modified card sorting test, in verbal fluency and all span tasks with exception of digit span forward. Patients who were treated with atypicals showed better performance in the digit ordering test (manipulation task) when compared to a group of patients who received conventional antipsychotics; this difference was not due to disease severity, age or education. Manipulation tasks might be useful for neurocognitive follow-up and intervention studies.
Müller
U
U
Department of Psychiatry, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. um207@cam.ac.uk
Werheid
K
K
Hammerstein
E
E
Jungmann
S
S
Becker
T
T
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications* / Q000188:drug therapy*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis
D014150:Antipsychotic Agents