The MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery, part 1: test selection, reliability, and validity.

Objective: The lack of an accepted standard for measuring cognitive change in schizophrenia has been a major obstacle to regulatory approval of cognition-enhancing treatments. A primary mandate of the National Institute of Mental Health's Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) initiative was to develop a consensus cognitive battery for clinical trials of cognition-enhancing treatments for schizophrenia through a broadly based scientific evaluation of measures.

Method: The MATRICS Neurocognition Committee evaluated more than 90 tests in seven cognitive domains to identify the 36 most promising measures.

The MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery, part 2: co-norming and standardization.

Objective: The consensus cognitive battery developed by the National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH's) Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) initiative includes 10 independently developed tests that are recommended as the standard battery for clinical trials of cognition-enhancing interventions for schizophrenia. To facilitate interpretation of results from the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery using a common scaling across tests, normative data were obtained from a single representative U.S.

Functional co-primary measures for clinical trials in schizophrenia: results from the MATRICS Psychometric and Standardization Study.

Objective: During the consensus meetings of the National Institute of Mental Health Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (NIMH-MATRICS) Initiative, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took the position that a drug for this purpose should show changes on 1) an accepted consensus cognitive performance measure and 2) an additional measure (i.

How should DSM-V criteria for schizophrenia include cognitive impairment?

Neurocognitive impairment is considered a core component of schizophrenia and is increasingly under investigation as a potential treatment target. On average, cognitive impairment is severe to moderately severe compared with healthy controls, and almost all patients with schizophrenia demonstrate cognitive decrements compared with their expected level if they had not developed the illness. Compared with patients with affective disorders, cognitive impairment in schizophrenia appears earlier, is more severe, and tends to be more independent of clinical symptoms.

Mood disorders: cardiovascular and diabetes comorbidity.

Purpose Of Review: Depression is often associated with medical comorbidity. New research quantifies patterns of mood disorder in illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, evaluates the prognostic significance of mood symptoms, and seeks to identify common mechanisms for both mood and medical disease. This review provides recent findings on comorbidity, summarizes mechanistic hypotheses, and outlines developments in treatment and services.

Recovery from schizophrenic psychoses within the northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort.

Background: Because of widely disparate findings from follow-up studies, the likelihood of recovery from schizophrenia remains controversial. We report the extent of recovery from schizophrenia in a population-based cohort.

Method: Subjects with psychotic disorders were recruited from the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort.

Changing middle schoolers' attitudes about mental illness through education.

The field test of The Science of Mental Illness curriculum supplement for middle school (grades 6-8) children provided an opportunity to assess knowledge and attitudes about mental illness in more than 1,500 middle school students throughout the United States and to evaluate the impact of an educational intervention on stigma-related attitudes. Two primary questions were examined: (1) what are the baseline knowledge and attitudes about mental illness in this sample of middle school students, and (2) does participation in a curriculum about the science of mental illness increase knowledge and improve attitudes about mental illness? Consistent with findings from other studies, results indicate that students had some understanding of mental illness as a problem of the brain with biological and psychosocial causes; however, they lacked knowledge about treatment and overall were "not sure" about many aspects of mental illness. The students did not strongly endorse negative attitudes about mental illness at baseline.

Approaching a consensus cognitive battery for clinical trials in schizophrenia: the NIMH-MATRICS conference to select cognitive domains and test criteria.

To stimulate the development of new drugs for the cognitive deficits of schizophrenia, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) established the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) initiative. This article presents an overview of decisions from the first MATRICS consensus conference. The goals of the meeting were to 1) identify the cognitive domains that should be represented in a consensus cognitive battery and 2) prioritize key criteria for selection of tests for the battery.

Brief cognitive assessment in schizophrenia: normative data for the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status.

Background: The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) is a brief, standardized cognitive screening instrument that assesses several domains of interest and offers an efficient approach to screening for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia (SC). Prior studies have established the clinical validity and test-retest reliability of the RBANS in SC.

Aims: The purpose of the current study was to guide clinical interpretation by providing normative data for the use of the RBANS as a measure of cognitive impairment in SC.

Smoking, gender, and dietary influences on erythrocyte essential fatty acid composition among patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

Background: Prior reports of decreased levels of essential fatty acids among schizophrenic patients have generated several hypotheses proposing inherent abnormalities in phospholipid and fatty acid metabolism and have provided the basis for treatment trials; however, these essential fatty acid aberrations may be attributable to uncontrolled factors, such as smoking, rather than abnormalities inherent to schizophrenia.

Methods: Erythrocyte fatty acid compositions were quantified in 72 medicated schizophrenic or schizoaffective patients both at baseline and after 16 weeks of supplementation with 3 g/day of either ethyl-eicosapentaenoic acid or placebo. Current smoking status, gender, dietary survey, and Montgomery Asburg Depression Rating Scale, Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale, and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale scores were assessed.

Test-retest stability of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status in schizophrenia.

Objective: The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) was designed as a cognitive screening test, providing both a total scale score and five specific cognitive ability index scores. This study examined the test-retest stability of the RBANS in individual patients with schizophrenia relative to a healthy comparison group.

Method: A total of 181 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were recruited from three clinical settings.

A programmatic approach to socially complex intervention development.

First used in psychiatry to study pharmacological treatments, the randomized controlled trial provides the most powerful test of the relative effectiveness of two or more interventions. Applying RCT methodology to socially complex service interventions, however, presents unique challenges that derive from difficulties in treatment standardization, attaining study sample equivalence and controlling for environmental variations. These challenges can be managed when intervention development proceeds along a programmatic trajectory that spans discovery, development, efficacy, effectiveness and practice research.

Cost and cost-effectiveness of hospital vs residential crisis care for patients who have serious mental illness.

Background: This study evaluates the cost and cost-effectiveness of a residential crisis program compared with treatment received in a general hospital psychiatric unit for patients who have serious mental illness in need of hospital-level care and who are willing to accept voluntary treatment.

Methods: Patients in the Montgomery County, Maryland, public mental health system (N = 119) willing to accept voluntary acute care were randomized to the psychiatric ward of a general hospital or a residential crisis program. Unit costs and service utilization data were used to estimate episode and 6-month treatment costs from the perspective of government payors.