Journal
SCHIZOPHRENIA RESEARCH
Volume 153, Issue 1-3, Pages 177-183Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2014.01.016
Keywords
D-Cycloserine; Cognitive remediation; Schizophrenia; MATRICS; SANS; Memory
Categories
Funding
- NARSAD
- NIH [K24 MH002025, P50 MH60450]
- NIMH [R21 MH097125]
- NIDA [F6761-01]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
D-Cycloserine (DCS) has been shown to enhance memory and, in a previous trial, once-weekly DCS improved negative symptoms in schizophrenia subjects. We hypothesized that DCS combined with a cognitive remediation (CR) program would improve memory of a practiced auditory discrimination task and that gains would generalize to performance on unpracticed cognitive tasks. Stable, medicated adult schizophrenia outpatients participated in the Brain Fitness CR program 3-5 times per week for 8 weeks. Subjects were randomly assigned to once-weekly adjunctive treatment with DCS (50 mg) or placebo administered before the first session each week. Primary outcomes were performance on an auditory discrimination task, the MATRICS cognitive battery composite score and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) total score. 36 subjects received study drug and 32 completed the trial (average number of CR sessions = 26.1). Performance on the practiced auditory discrimination task significantly improved in the DCS group compared to the placebo group. DCS was also associated with significantly greater negative symptom improvement for subjects symptomatic at baseline (SANS score >= 20). However, improvement on the MATRICS battery was observed only in the placebo group. Considered with previous results, these findings suggest that DCS augments CR and alleviates negative symptoms in schizophrenia patients. However, further work is needed to evaluate whether CR gains achieved with DCS can generalize to other unpracticed cognitive tasks. (C) 2014 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available