Controlling Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia (Video: 2:54 minutes)

Key Takeaways

• Primary negative symptoms remain a substantial unmet need, in part because of mechanistic overlap with cognitive impairment and limited responsiveness to standard antipsychotic approaches.
• Differentiating primary from secondary negative symptoms is clinically pivotal, since secondary symptoms may improve with optimized treatment of psychosis, mood symptoms, or iatrogenic factors.
• Psychosocial strategies and tailored pharmacologic adjustments can reduce functional burden when negative symptoms reflect behavioral or contextual drivers, including hyper-religiosity.
• Clozapine and other newer antipsychotics have not delivered significant, durable efficacy for core negative symptoms despite benefits in other schizophrenia domains.