Early Treatment-Induced Improvement of Negative Symptoms Predicts Cognitive Functioning in Treatment-Naive First Episode Schizophrenia: A 2-Year Followup

Studying neuroleptic-naive first episode schizophrenia is a strategy for investigating clinical and neuropsy-chological abnormalities at a very early phase of the disease without confounding influences of illness dura-tion and medication effects. We examined the clinical and neuropsychological time course over 2 years in 32 neuroleptic-naive first episode patients (20 males, 12 females) and 21 healthy individuals with similar sociodemographic characteristics. Early treatment-induced reduction of negative symptoms predicted superior cognitive performance throughout followup in the domains of verbal fluency, attention, and non-verbal learning and memory. There were no associa-tions between psychotic or disorganized symptoms and cognitive variables. These findings suggest an impor-tant relationship between treatment efficacy of antipsychotic medication and the longer term course of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia