Normal P50 suppression in schizophrenia patients treated with atypical antipsychotic medications

Objective: Patients with schizophrenia have deficits in attention, cognitio n, and information processing. Measures such as P50 suppression are used to study cognitive and attentional dysfunction among these patients. P50 supp ression is an operational measure of sensory gating that can be assessed by averaging electroencephalographic responses to multiple pairs of auditory clicks separated by 500 msec. Normally, the P50 response to the second clic k is smaller than the response to the first click. Many studies have demons trated that schizophrenia patients have deficient P50 suppression, meaning that the difference between the first and second clicks is not as large as normal. Atypical antipsychotic medications may have superior clinical effic acy for negative symptoms and cognitive deficits. It is important, therefor e, to evaluate the effects of atypical antipsychotic medications on measure s such as P50 suppression. Method: P50 suppression of 13 patients with schizophrenia receiving clinica lly effective doses of clozapine, olanzapine, or risperidone (classified as atypical antipsychotic medications) was compared to that of 13 patients re ceiving conventional antipsychotic medications. Results: The patient groups did not differ on clinical or demographic measu res. The patients receiving atypical antipsychotic medications had normal-r ange P50 suppression (mean=72%). In contrast, the patients receiving typica l antipsychotic medications had dramatically lower P50 suppression (mean= 2 7%). Conclusions: The results support the hypothesis that patients treated with atypical antipsychotic medications have normal P50 measures of sensory gati ng. Longitudinal within-subjects studies are warranted to clarify the mecha nisms mediating this effect.