The effects of drugs on objective measures of thought disorder in schizophrenic patients

Results of studies using tests of thought disorder suggest the possibility of distinguishing three separate and possibly independent syndromes among schizophrenic patients.Process schizophrenics seem to be characterized by a relatively low I.Q., general psychomotor retardation, a slow reaction time, perceptual underconstancy, concreteness and distractibility. Many of these specific defects can be produced in normal people by the drug Sernyl, but not by other drugs studied. No known drug (such as the phenothiazines) has been shown to improve all these dysfunctions significantly in schizophrenic patients.Psychotic anxiety reaction is a label which might be used to describe the thinking disturbances found in many reactive schizophrenics. It consists of a tendency to produce unusual responses in a wide range of experimental situations, accompanied by an unusual degree of perceptual constancy. These behavioral abnormalities might be due to the disruptive effects of a very high level of anxiety, and might be alleviated by depressant drugs.Overinclusive Psychosis, characterizes a minority of hyperactive schizophrenics and some manic patients, who seem to use unusually broad and vaguely defined concepts in their thinking. LSD may induce this type of thinking in normal subjects, and it is possible that it may respond to phenothiazine medication.Paper presented at the meetings of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, December 10–11, 1970, San Juan, Puerto Rico, as part of a symposium, Behavioral Mechanisms of Drug Action in Schizophrenia, Solomon C. Goldberg, Chairman.