Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0036341 (schizophrenia)
 60,220 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The study reports about the intravenous application of Biperiden at patients with acute hypokinetic reaction suffering from schizophrenia of the paranoid-hallucinatory type. In all of the six cases examined a fast abolition of the stupor could be observed. The pathophysiological mechanisms deriving from our clinical experiences are discussed. Furthermore, a therapeutic procedure is suggested to treat acute schizophrenic stupor merely with drugs.
 ...
PMID:[Treatment of acute schizophrenic stupor: the effect of biperiden (author's transl)]. 50 45

Anticholinergic drugs have been assumed to have no effects on schizophrenic symptomatology. Some studies suggest, however, that anticholinergic agents may antagonize the beneficial effect of neuroleptics on positive symptoms and partially ameliorate negative symptoms. Virtually all studies have been conducted in patients receiving concomitant neuroleptic treatment, raising the possibility that neuroleptics may obscure or modify any "true" anticholinergic effect on schizophrenic symptoms. To evaluate the hypothesis that anticholinergics may increase positive and decrease negative schizophrenic symptoms, we assessed the effect of biperiden on symptoms in the medication-free state. We studied the effect of biperiden 8 mg/day for 2 days on positive and negative symptoms in 40 otherwise drug-free schizophrenic inpatients. Biperiden produced a significant increase in positive symptoms (t = 6.7, p < .001) and reduction in negative symptoms (t = -3.4, p < .01). These data indicate that cholinergic modulation significantly affects positive and negative schizophrenic symptoms and suggest the need for systematic trials of cholinergic and anticholinergic agents in the treatment of positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, respectively.
 ...
PMID:Effect of anticholinergics on positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia. 148 Jul 33

The study dealt with the occurrence of dyskinetic symptoms and disturbances in eye movements in 15 young schizophrenic patients and the effect on these disturbances of anticholinergic antiparkinsonian medication administered during neuroleptic medication maintained at a stable level. The onset of illness had occurred at a younger age in the dyskinetic patients than in the others, and they had received larger amounts of high-dose neuroleptic medication, which, however, equalled an average daily dose of only 331 mg of chlorpromazine during an average of 2 1/2 years; thus, dyskinetic symptoms can appear in young patients even during a fairly short and moderate course of medication with high-dose neuroleptics. Patients with a disturbance in smooth pursuit movement were clinically less disturbed than the others; depression, however, was more common among them. During therapy with an anticholinergic antiparkinsonian drug (Biperiden) depression worsened in patients with eye movement disturbance, while in other patients it was alleviated. The results, in fact, indicated that on the basis of disturbances in smooth pursuit movement it might be possible to distinguish among schizophrenia-group patients a depressively coloured marginal group in whom the reaction to anticholinergic medication differs from that found for patients in the nuclear-schizophrenia group.
 ...
PMID:Dyskinesia and eye tracking dysfunction in young schizophrenic patients - a pilot study. 613 41

The arguments against the use of anticholinergic antiparkinsonian drugs for neuroleptic-induced parkinsonism have been based, in part, on their autonomic side effects. Except for anecdotal case reports, there is little evidence that antiparkinsonian drugs are the main factor causing autonomic dysfunction in schizophrenic patients with parkinsonism. Therefore, in the current study, the separate influences of the anticholinergic antiparkinsonian drug (biperiden), parkinsonism, and psychotic symptoms on cardiac autonomic function were investigated in 48 patients with schizophrenia. Biperiden was discontinued in 33 patients with or without parkinsonism and commenced in 15 patients with parkinsonism. Their parkinsonism and psychotic symptoms were assessed using rating scales, and their cardiac autonomic functions were assessed using the mean R-R interval and 3 methods of analyzing heart rate variability both before and after the change in medication. Consequently, the cardiac autonomic function was not affected by biperiden or the change in parkinsonism. Cardiac vagal function decreased when psychotic symptoms were more pronounced, but cardiac sympathetic function did not show a significant change. Therefore, it appeared that psychotic symptoms played the predominant role in modifying the cardiac autonomic function, implying the existence of autonomic changes associated with cognitive processing and a possible relation between psychotic symptoms and autonomic symptoms in schizophrenia.
 ...
PMID:Influences of an anticholinergic antiparkinsonian drug, parkinsonism, and psychotic symptoms on cardiac autonomic function in schizophrenia. 1452 Jan 19

Learned irrelevance (LIrr) refers to a reduction in associative learning after pre-exposure of the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus in a non-contingent fashion. This paradigm might serve as a translational model for (pre)attentive information processing deficits in schizophrenia. This is the first study to investigate the event-related potentials (ERPs) of a within-subject LIrr paradigm in humans. Furthermore, the effects of the muscarinic M1 antagonist biperiden on LIrr were assessed. As expected, LIrr was found to be intact in young healthy volunteers after placebo. Furthermore, in the placebo condition P3b latency was decreased for target stimuli, which were pre-cued. This suggests that the predictability of the occurrence of these stimuli is mainly reflected by this ERP component. Biperiden had no effect on the behavioural LIrr measures, although prolonged reaction times were evident. Biperiden increased the N1 amplitude of the pre-exposed predictor letters, suggesting an effect of this drug on early perceptual processing. In conclusion, the within-subject paradigm used in the current study in combination with electroencephalography can reveal brain mechanisms involved in LIrr. M1 antagonism did not affect LIrr performance but seemed to influence early information processing.
 ...
PMID:Human electrophysiological correlates of learned irrelevance: effects of the muscarinic M1 antagonist biperiden. 2209 24

The acetylcholine muscarinic M1 receptor has been implicated in both psychosis and cognition. Post-mortem research has shown reduced muscarinic M1 receptor density in 25% of chronic patients with schizophrenia. It is unknown whether reduced M1 receptor density is related to cognitive symptoms of psychosis. We investigated the role of the M1 receptor in separate cognitive domains in subjects with a psychotic disorder using a muscarinic M1 antagonist as an acute pharmacological challenge. 33 young subjects with a psychotic disorder and 30 gender, age and IQ matched healthy controls were enrolled. All participants completed a comprehensive cognitive test battery twice: once after placebo and once after oral administration of 4mg. biperiden (M1 antagonist). The order of drug administration was counterbalanced. Biperiden significantly negatively influenced both verbal (p< 0.001 and p=0.032) and visual learning and memory (p=0.028) in both groups. A medication x group interaction effect was found for reasoning and problem solving (p=0.005). No main or interaction effects were found for other cognitive domains. These results provide further in-vivo evidence that the M1 receptor is involved in cognitive functioning, particularly verbal and visual memory processes. Lack of differential effects of biperiden between psychotic subjects and healthy controls may suggest that decreased M1 receptor density is only present in chronic, older schizophrenia patients. However, it remains possible that differential effects of biperiden would be present in more severe cognitive impaired subjects with psychosis after several doses of biperiden instead of a single administration.
 ...
PMID:The effect of the muscarinic M1 receptor antagonist biperiden on cognition in medication free subjects with psychosis. 2868 87