Psychopharmacologic Aspects of Motor Slowing in Schizophrenia

Motor slowing is a hallmark, clinical sign in mental illness. Slowness can be related to a specific disease process, as in negative schizophrenia or depression or it can be the result of medications used to treat forms of mental illness. Prior research has lead to a novel instrumental approach for distinguishing subtypes of motor slowing - one type related to cognitive processes and another related to parkinsonism. The purpose of this study is to test whether new medications used to treat schizophrenia improve the cognitive or parkinsonian components of motor slowing. Patients will be studied in the laboratory before and 8-weeks after starting a new antipsychotic. The n of this study = 60 patients. The results of this study will improve our understanding of the complex interactions between cognitive processing and motor behavior in patients with psychotic illnesses and how drugs work to treat these problems.