The cognitive cost of anticholinergic burden: decreased response to cognitive training in schizophrenia.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Schizophrenia is treated with medications that raise serum anticholinergic activity and are known to adversely affect cognition. The authors examined the relationship between serum anticholinergic activity and baseline cognitive performance and response to computerized cognitive training in outpatients with schizophrenia.

Method

Fifty-five patients were randomly assigned to either computerized cognitive training or a computer games control condition. A neurocognitive battery based on the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) initiative was performed at baseline and after the intervention. Serum anticholinergic activity, measured at study entry by radioreceptor assay, was available for 49 patients.

Results

Serum an

SUBMITTER: Vinogradov S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3735363 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature