Response to clozapine in treatment resistant schizophrenia is related to alterations in regional cerebral blood flow.
Sun J., Zelaya F., Sendt K-V., McQueen G., Gillespie AL., Lally J., Howes OD., Barker GJ., McGuire P., MacCabe JH., Egerton A.
PET and SPECT studies in treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) have revealed significant alterations in regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) during clozapine treatment, which may vary according to the clinical response. Here, we used the more recent MRI approach of arterial spin labelling (ASL) to evaluate regional CBF in participants with TRS (N = 36) before starting treatment with clozapine compared to in healthy volunteers (N = 16). We then compared CBF in the TRS group, before and after 12 weeks of treatment with clozapine (N = 24); and examined the relationship of those differences against changes in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale for Schizophrenia (PANSS) scores over the treatment period. We observed widespread reductions in CBF in TRS compared to in healthy volunteers (p