Faculty Bibliography

Sensitivity to the emetic effect of apomorphine was not different in unmedicated schizophrenic and control subjects. Sensitivity to apomorphine emesis also did not correlate with schizophrenics' level of psychopathology before treatment. Floridity of baseline psychopathology was found to predict improvement with treatment. Change in psychopathology after amphetamine correlated inversely with apomorphine emesis sensitivity and statistically predicted improvement after neuroleptic treatment. Clinically meaningful improvement after neuroleptics was rare in subjects whose psychopathology did not change after amphetamine. In a separate study, clear increases in psychopathology after amphetamine appeared to predict rapid relapse after neuroleptic discontinuation. These later data are preliminary.

Forty inpatient volunteers with diagnoses of schizophrenia were randomly assigned to treatment either with trebenzomine or thioridazine in a double-blind study of clinical antipsychotic efficacy following a 1-week placebo treatment. Psychopathology was rated using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and Clinical Global Impression (CGI). There was a significant difference in therapeutic response to the two drugs in that psychopathology decreased significantly for the thioridazine group, but not for the trebenzomine group. Serum prolactin was elevated during treatment with thioridazine, but not with trebenzomine. Side effects were more frequently reported for the thioridazine group. These results fail to confirm previous reports of clinical antipsychotic efficacy for trebenzomine