Effects of a nicotinic agonist on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale five-factor subscale model in schizophrenia

The excitatory, ligand-gated α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) has been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia based on convergent genetic, post-mortem, and psychopharmacological studies (reviewed in Freedman, 2014). Preclinical animal studies (reviewed in Lewis et al., 2017), as well as early phase clini cal studies of patients with schizophrenia (Olincy et al., 2006), suggest α7 nAChR agonists may be useful for treatment of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. However, results of larger randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials of α7 nAChR agonists with a primary cognitive outcome have bee n mixed, despite these agents being well tolerated (Freedman et al., 2008; Keefe et al., 2015; Umbricht et al., 2014).
Source: Schizophrenia Research - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Letter to the Editor Source Type: research