In a new study, researchers found that targeting one particular symptom of schizophrenia has a positive effect on other symptoms.
This offers a big promise for treating an aspect of schizophrenia that currently has no pharmaceutical options.
The research was conducted by a team at the University of Georgia.
Schizophrenia is the leading medical cause of functional disability worldwide, according to several population-based studies of health.
People with functional disabilities struggle to hold a job, build social relationships and maintain the independent activities of daily living.
In the U.S., it can also refer to receiving government-supported disability funds.
The current study confirming that successfully treating the symptom avolition—reduced motivation—has a positive effect on other negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
The results were based on a phase 2b trial of the compound roluperidone by Minerva Neurosciences.
The team says there’s a lot of hope that Minerva’s phase 3 trial will show a similar improvement in negative symptoms.
This could be the first drug that receives an indication for negative symptoms of schizophrenia from the Food and Drug Administration, which is perhaps the biggest need in the field of psychiatry.
It would be a monumental benefit to the lives of people with schizophrenia.
The team previously had demonstrated that negative symptoms are not a singular construct, as has long been assumed, but reflect five distinct domains: avolition; anhedonia (reduced pleasure); asociality (reduction in social activity); blunted effect (reduction in outwardly expressed emotion in the face and voice); and alogia (reduced speech).
Each domain constitutes a separate treatment target.
The current study results indicated that avolition is a highly central domain within the negative symptom construct, suggesting that the other negative symptoms are tightly coupled to this domain, and if it is treated successfully, the entire constellation of negative symptoms might improve.
The lead author of the study is Gregory Strauss.
The study is published in Schizophrenia Bulletin.
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