Patterns of recovery of autonomic dysfunctions and neurocognitive deficitsin schizophrenics after acute psychotic episodes

In this study, the authors aimed to identify patterns of autonomic dysfunct ion and neurocognitive deficit recovery. The authors performed laboratory a ssessments on 66 patients with schizophrenia immediately after an acute psy chotic episode and 6, 12, and 18 months later. Shortly after the psychotic episode, the patients displayed cardiovascular hyperarousal at rest, cardio vascular and electrodermal hyporeactivity during 2 Continuous Performance T asks (CPTs) and deficits in 2 behavioral CPT measures (i.e., reaction time and omission error rate) compared with 29 normal controls. In the subsequen t pospsychotic course, changes indicative of a process of recovery occur-re d in all measurement areas, although with regard to autonomic hyporeactivit y amelioration was limited to a subgroup of schizophrenics with complete an d persistent symptomatic remission. Neurocognitive improvement in CPTs did not appear to depend on unimpaired autonomic reactivity mechanisms.