Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry
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Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry · Dec 2008
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialA 12-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of donepezil adjunctive treatment to risperidone in chronic and stable schizophrenia.
There is considerable incentive to develop new treatment strategies that effectively target cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. One of the theoretically promising novel treatment candidates is acetylcholinesterase inhibitors that increase the synaptic levels of cholinergic, nicotinic, and muscarinic receptor activity. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of donepezil as an adjuvant agent in the treatment of chronic schizophrenia in particular for cognitive impairments. ⋯ The donepezil group had significantly greater improvement in the negative symptoms over the 12-week trial. There were no differences between the donepezil and placebo groups on any neurocognitive assessments at endpoint (week 12). The present study indicates donepezil as a potential adjunctive treatment strategy for negative symptoms of chronic schizophrenia.