Section 4 - Assessment and treatment of cognitive impairment and related features

Summary

The Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) project identified tests that measure cognition in clinical trials and outlined clinical trial designs believed to best test the treatment effects of a compound on cognition in patients with schizophrenia. The MATRICS project focused primarily on later-phase trials that would satisfy regulatory requirements for product registration and deriving a cognitive test battery that could be used to measure treatment effects consistently across clinical studies. Cognitive neuroscience tasks are developed in individual laboratories, their methods allow great attention to detail and essentially no need for clear communication of assessment procedures to other investigators. The Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS) is a 20-item interview-based assessment covering all seven cognitive domains tested in the MATRICS battery. The advantages of computerized test batteries allow standardized stimulus presentation and scoring, response measures of response latencies, and immediate direct data transfer to study databases.