Effects of adjunct valproic acid on clinical symptoms and saccadic eye movements in schizophrenia

Objective Valproic acid (VPA) has been suggested as a potential adjunct therapy in schizophrenia for the treatment of clinical symptoms and cognitive deficits. Here, we investigate the effects of VPA on clinical symptoms and saccadic eye movements while controlling for multiple medication effects. Methods Remitted and first-episode schizophrenia patients taking haloperidol were given adjunct VPA for approximately 2weeks and tested using a measure of clinical symptoms (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) and saccadic eye movement tasks over three testing periods. The effects of VPA were compared with schizophrenia patients medicated with equivalent doses of haloperidol alone (HAL group) and normal controls. Results Schizophrenia patients had higher error rates on the antisaccade task (AS task) compared with normal controls. Adjunct VPA did not affect AS task error rates but was associated with an increase in response times for both saccade and AS tasks, with a significantly greater and dose-dependent increase in response times for the AS task. There were no differences in clinical improvement between VPA and HAL schizophrenia patient groups when controlling for haloperidol medication state. Conclusions These results suggest that adjuvant VPA therapy results in both sensorimotor and cognitive slowing but does not either help or further impair inhibitory control in schizophrenia, as measured by the elevated AS task errors. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. key words—saccade; antisaccade; valproic acid; schizophrenia; haloperidol