Early antipsychotic intervention and schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a major mental disorder in which patients' cognitive functions gradually deteriorate. Pharmacological intervention with antipsychotics has proven effective, yet it is still debatable whether to initiate treatment in patients' premorbid stage. Based on the developmental origins of schizophrenia, we hypothesize that for those who are at high risk for schizophrenia, particularly with gating problems, an early pharmacological intervention would be beneficial. We performed a pilot rodent study to evaluate this hypothesis. Our results demonstrated that isolation rearing-induced sensorimotor gating dysfunction could be reversed by a chronic risperidone regimen initiated at different age time points. As expected, interventions that we initiated earlier (in adolescent stage) appeared to have better efficacy than interventions initiated four weeks later (in young adult stage). Our hypothesis may contribute new insight for both prevention and treatment of schizophrenia.