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Ziprasidone-induced cognitive enhancement in schizophrenia: specificity or pseudospecificity?
Anil K Malhotra1, Katherine E Burdick, Kamran Razi
1Division of Psychiatry Research, The Zucker Hillside Hospital, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, Glen Oaks, NY 11004, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, United States. Malhotra@lij.edu
Objective:
Ziprasidone may improve cognition in schizophrenia; however, this could be related to clinical symptom improvement, reflecting "pseudospecificity". We tested the hypothesis that ziprasidone improves cognition in the absence of clinical improvement.
Methods:
We conducted a 12-week, open-label study of ziprasidone in 10 schizophrenia patients who met non-response criteria (<20% reduction in BPRS scores over 12 weeks). We conducted comprehensive cognitive testing and assessed change from baseline to end of study.
Results:
We detected significant improvement on three measures of episodic memory (p<0.01) in these clinically non-responsive patients. Trend-level improvements were noted on tests involving processing speed and executive function.
Conclusions:
These data suggest that ziprasidone has cognitive benefits unrelated to an influence on other disease parameters.
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