Treatment-Responsiveness of Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia: A double-blind placebo-control clinical trial

Background: the negative symptoms of schizophrenia remaina major clinical challenge. nortriptyline is a serotoninand noradrenalin reuptake inhibitor and belongs to secondaryamine tricycles. the aim of this study is to evaluate the effectof nortriptyline on the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.methods: this study is a six-week randomized placebocontroltrial of nortriptyline or placebo as an adjunctive tohaloperidol (5 mg) in the treatment of 50 patients with diagnosticand statistical manual for mental disorders (dsm-iv)criteria for chronic schizophrenia.result: the primary finding of the trial was a significant reductionin scale for assessment of negative symptoms(sans) in the nortriptyline group compared to placebo at theend of 6 week, all the subscales of sans demonstrate significantimprovement.conclusion: this study suggests a potential role for nortriptylinein the treatment of negative symptoms of schizophrenia.