Apathy in Schizophrenia

Completed

• Conditions: Schizophrenia; Apathy

• Registration Number: NCT01689181
• Lead Sponsor: Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France

Brief Summary

Apathy, defined as a quantitative reduction of voluntary, goal-directed behaviours (GDB), is a core component of negative symptoms. It has been suggested that the physiopathology of apathy is not a single entity but may be multiple, depending on which specific process or macrofunction is disrupted during completion of GDB. In line with this notion, Levy and Dubois proposed dividing apathic syndromes into three subtypes of disrupted processing: 'a-motivation', 'cognitive inertia', and 'uncoupling'. In schizophrenia, apathy has been associated with executive dysfunction, functional impairment and poor outcome. However, the neurobiological underpinnings of apathy in schizophrenia are poorly understood.

Primary objective: confirm that chronic schizophrenic patients are apathic compared to healthy volunteers

Secondary objectives:

* investigate if apathy is related to a particular aspect of the disease (i.e. negative, positive symptomatology and/or deficit form)

* investigate if apathy correlates with executive dysfunction

* investigate if apathy is associated with a specific mechanism using an experimental task specially designed to investigate the different mechanism (i.e. 'a-motivation', 'cognitive inertia', and 'uncoupling')

* investigate if there is a volumetric abnormality affecting the executive system in apathic schizophrenic patients

* link these eventual volumetric abnormalities to prefrontal cortex-basal ganglia circuits according to a specific subtype of apathy in the apathic schizophrenic group

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2012-06
• Study First Submitted: 2012-09-07
• Study First Submitted QC: 2012-09-17
• Study First Posted: 2012-09-21
• Primary Completion: 2013-06-05
• Study Completion: 2013-06-05
• Status Verified: 2025-01
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-01-21
• Last Update Posted: 2025-01-23

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 60

Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
apathy as measured by Starkstein's Apathy Evaluation Scale	baseline

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
neuropsychological performance	baseline	* Global mental efficience: Mill Hill B and Raven's progressive matrices 38; * Executive functioning:Modified Card Sorting Test, Trail Making A and B, Stroop Test, Verbal Fluences, Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB, Dubois et al., 2000); * Social and Emotional Cognition: SEA (Social and Emotional Evaluation (SEA, Funkiewiez et al., 2012); * Working memory (Grober and Buschke - 16 items, digit span); * Instrumental functions: Rey Osterrieth Complex figure)
clinical assessment (for patients only)	baseline	scores on evaluation scales (PANSS, SAPS, SANS, CDS, SDS)
volumetric brain abnormalities	baseline	voxel based morphometry

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

INSERM MEDU 945, Centre de Recherche-Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle (CR-ICM), Hôpital de la Pitié Salpétrière; 🇫🇷 Paris, France