Modafinil Effects on Cognition in Schizophrenia Patients
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2012-07-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Patients with schizophrenia have problems in thinking, known as cognitive dysfunction. This
includes many types of cognitive dysfunction, such as in attention, memory and language.
These problems may explain why patients with schizophrenia think and act in unusual ways, and
often have problems managing aspects of their lives that healthy adults take for granted.
Unfortunately, the biochemical aspects of these dysfunctions are presently unknown, and it is
not clear whether current psychiatric medications can improve these functions. A recent
FDA-approved medication that may improve this function is modafinil. Studies in animals and
healthy adults show that this medication can improve many of these cognitive functions. We
plan to study the effects of modafinil on these cognitive processes, by giving various doses
of this medication to patients before they perform tasks of these cognitive processes. We
predict that when patients receive modafinil, they will perform better on a cognitive test,
and that these benefits will depend on the dose given.
Phase:
Phase 4
Details
Lead Sponsor:
University of California, Davis University of California, Los Angeles