ArticlePsychopharmacology2015
Effects of anticholinergic challenge on psychopathology and cognition in drug-free patients with schizophrenia and healthy volunteers.
Article in Psychopharmacology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Variability and Magnitude of Choline Levels Across the Psychosis Spectrum: A Meta-analysis.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Pooled it
- Processing Speed Impairment in Schizophrenia: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JAMA psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Cholinergic system in schizophrenia: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Anticholinergic deprescribing interventions for reducing risk of cognitive decline or dementia in older adults with and without prior cognitive impairment.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Anticholinergic burden for prediction of cognitive decline or neuropsychiatric symptoms in older adults with mild cognitive impairment or dementia.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Biperiden Challenge Model in Healthy Elderly as Proof-of-Pharmacology Tool: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial.Journal of clinical pharmacology · 2021Trial
- Verbal learning deficits associated with increased anticholinergic burden are attenuated with targeted cognitive training in treatment refractory schizophrenia patients.Schizophrenia research · 2019Trial
- Apical integration theory provides a neural basis for understanding disorganization and consciousness in the schizophrenias.Current research in neurobiology · 2026Article
- M1 receptors interacting with NMDAR enhance delay-related neuronal firing and improve working memory performance.Current research in neurobiology · 2021Article
- Article
- The role of striatal dopamine DPsychopharmacology · 2018Article
- Relationship between muscarinic MNeuroImage. Clinical · 2018Article
- Drugs Interfering with Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptors and Their Effects on Place Navigation.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2017Review
- Potentiation of M1 Muscarinic Receptor Reverses Plasticity Deficits and Negative and Cognitive Symptoms in a Schizophrenia Mouse Model.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
rationaleMany aspects of the neurobiology of schizophrenia, especially the physiological basis of the negative symptoms and associated cognitive deficits, remain inadequately understood. Tandon and Greden (1989) postulated a central role of dopaminergic/cholinergic imbalance in schizophrenia. OBJECTIVE/
methodsIn light of this hypothesis, we elected to investigate the effects of anticholinergic challenge on psychopathology, cognition and attention in 12 unmedicated patients with schizophrenia and 12 healthy controls. The first examination occurred before any pharmacological intervention; the second examination was carried out immediately following an intravenous infusion of 5 mg biperiden, a centrally acting antimuscarinergic agent.
resultsThe biperiden challenge provoked a considerable increase in PANSS scores in both groups which was significantly more pronounced in patients (repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) (rmANOVA): F(df) = 6.4(1,22); p = 0.019). The increase in the PANSS scores showed a significant negative correlation with age in patients. Biperiden caused considerable cognitive impairments in both groups. A significant group difference (rmANOVA) could be observed for TMT-B (F(df) = 11.29(1,22); p = 0.003).
conclusionsThe anticholinergic intervention caused more pronounced psychopathological and cognitive deteriorating effects in patients suffering from schizophrenia than in healthy volunteers. This could be related to the disrupted cholinergic transmission in schizophrenia. Our findings speak on behalf of the need of a more restrictive use of anticholinergics in psychiatric patients. The age-related attenuation of PANSS score increases in patients could be related to the age-dependent changes in dopamine dynamics and also to the age-associated decline of the availability of muscarinic receptors. Our results emphasise the need for further investigation of cholinergic disturbances in schizophrenia.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.