Cognitive Remediation Therapy for Schizophrenia: Effects on brain strucure and function

Lead Researcher:

Prof Gary Donohoe

Award Date:

1 January 2012

Host Institution:

Trinity College Dublin

Scheme:

Health Research Awards

Summary:

This project will evaluate a cognitive remediation intervention for community based patients with chronic schizophrenia. Cognitive deficits are a major source of disability in schizophrenia, and often predict functional outcome more accurately than clinical symptom severity. Because current antipsychotic medications do not adequately treat these deficits the use of neuropsychological interventions to improve cognitive function - often described as cognitive remediation Therapy  [CRT] – has become a major research focus in schizophrenia. While evidence for the efficacy of CRT is now abundant, this treatment is not currently available in Irish mental health services. With the assistance of funding from the Genio Trust we undertook a pilot study of CRT in cooperation with the community based patient support group SHINE (previously called schizophrenia Ireland) which showed a significant cognitive advantage to those undertaking CRT.

In planning to make this approach more widely available in community mental health settings around Ireland several important questions about this intervention need to be addressed; these include (1) confirming the efficacy of this intervention on general and specific measures of cognition, (2) elucidating the brain mechanisms by which observed effects are mediated (3) establishing the consequences of such changes for social and occupational function and (4) establishing the acceptability of this treatment for patients. Addressing these questions, this project will compare changes in patients receiving CR training with an active control patient group on measures of neuropsychological performance, brain structure, and social and occupational functioning. To do so this project is seeking funding for (1) a Post-doctoral fellow and (2) MRI scanning of patients before and after treatment.