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Social cognition and visual perception in schizophrenia inpatients treated with first-and second-generation antipsychotic drugs.

Abstract

PURPOSE
Social cognition captures affect recognition, social cue perception, "theory of mind," empathy, and attributional style. The aim of our study was to assess social cognition in schizophrenia inpatients being treated with first-generation antipsychotic drugs (FGAs), n=28 (perphenazine and haloperidol, FGAs) or with second-generation antipsychotic drugs (SGAs), n=56 (olanzapine and clozapine, SGAs).
SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Eighty-four patients completed the Facial Expression Recognition Test, the Voice Emotion Recognition Test, the Short Recognition Memory Test for Faces, and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. Patients also completed the Visual Object and Space Perception Test (VOSP) as a control task, which would not engage social cognition. The patients were compared with fifty healthy controls matched for age and gender. ResulTS: There were no significant differences on social cognitive performance between the FGA- and SGA-treatment groups. Nor was olanzapine superior to clozapine, FGAs or both. However, patients treated with FGAs performed significantly worse on VOSP compared to both groups treated with SGAs, a 10% difference.
CONCLUSIONS
We cannot conclude that SGAs were associated with better social cognition than FGAs. However, there were small but significant advantages for SGAs in non-social visual processing function, as evaluated with the VOSP.

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  • Publisher Full Text

    • Authors

    Kucharska-Pietura K, Mortimer A, Tylec A, Czernikiewicz A

    Institution

    Department of Mental Health, Hull York Medical School, Grimsby, UK.

    Source

    Clinical schizophrenia & related psychoses 6:1 2012 Apr pg 14-20

    MeSH

    Adolescent
    Adult
    Affect
    Antipsychotic Agents
    Awareness
    Benzodiazepines
    Case-Control Studies
    Clozapine
    Cues
    Discrimination (Psychology)
    Emotions
    Facial Expression
    Female
    Haloperidol
    Hospitalization
    Humans
    Linear Models
    Male
    Middle Aged
    Perphenazine
    Psychotic Disorders
    Retina
    Schizophrenia
    Schizophrenic Psychology
    Social Behavior
    Social Perception
    Speech Perception
    Theory of Mind
    Visual Perception
    Young Adult

    Pub Type(s)

    Comparative Study
    Controlled Clinical Trial
    Journal Article

    Language

    eng

    PubMed ID

    22453865