TY - JOUR
T1 - Clozapine improves the orienting of attention in schizophrenia
AU - Spagna, Alfredo
AU - Dong, Yi
AU - Mackie, Melissa Ann
AU - Li, Ming
AU - Harvey, Philip D.
AU - Tian, Yanghua
AU - Wang, Kai
AU - Fan, Jin
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a NARSAD Young Investigator Award to JF. The authors report no financial or other conflict of interest relevant to the subject of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2015/10/1
Y1 - 2015/10/1
N2 - Attentional deficits are prominent in the cognitive profile of patients with schizophrenia. However, it remains unclear whether treatment with clozapine, an atypical antipsychotic and first-line intervention used to reduce positive and negative symptoms of psychosis, improves the attentional functions. We used the revised attention network test to measure alerting, orienting, and executive control of attention both pre- and post-treatment with clozapine in patients with schizophrenia (n= 32) and compared performance to healthy controls (n= 32). Results revealed that there were deficits in all three attentional functions pre-treatment, and while clozapine improved the orienting function in patients with schizophrenia, there was no evidence for improvement in the alerting and executive control of attention. The enhancement of the orienting function by clozapine may increase the ability of patients with schizophrenia to orient towards objects and thoughts of interest.
AB - Attentional deficits are prominent in the cognitive profile of patients with schizophrenia. However, it remains unclear whether treatment with clozapine, an atypical antipsychotic and first-line intervention used to reduce positive and negative symptoms of psychosis, improves the attentional functions. We used the revised attention network test to measure alerting, orienting, and executive control of attention both pre- and post-treatment with clozapine in patients with schizophrenia (n= 32) and compared performance to healthy controls (n= 32). Results revealed that there were deficits in all three attentional functions pre-treatment, and while clozapine improved the orienting function in patients with schizophrenia, there was no evidence for improvement in the alerting and executive control of attention. The enhancement of the orienting function by clozapine may increase the ability of patients with schizophrenia to orient towards objects and thoughts of interest.
KW - Attention
KW - Attention network test
KW - Attentional networks
KW - Clozapine
KW - Schizophrenia
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U2 - 10.1016/j.schres.2015.08.009
DO - 10.1016/j.schres.2015.08.009
M3 - Article
C2 - 26298539
AN - SCOPUS:84942367275
SN - 0920-9964
VL - 168
SP - 285
EP - 291
JO - Schizophrenia Research
JF - Schizophrenia Research
IS - 1-2
M1 - 6497
ER -