Elsevier

Psychiatry Research

Volume 31, Issue 3, March 1990, Pages 235-241
Psychiatry Research

Effect of anticholinergic medication on positive and negative symptoms in medication-free schizophrenic patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-1781(90)90092-JGet rights and content

Abstract

It is generally assumed that anticholinergic drugs have no effects on schizophrenic symptomatology. A few studies, however, indicate that anticholinergic agents aggravate psychotic symptoms and antagonize therapeutic effects of neuroleptics in schizophrenic patients; more recently, some investigators have observed that these agents appear to benefit negative symptoms. In an effort to resolve this issue, we studied the effects of 2 days of treatment with biperiden on positive and negative symptoms in 15 medication-free schizophrenic patients. Positive symptoms increased significantly, while there was a trend toward a decrease in negative symptoms. The implications of these findings for the role of the cholinergic system in schizophrenia are discussed.

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