Negative symptoms treatment: Sodium Nitroprusside

Medications
1

Has anybody tried this treatment?? I was reading on another thread that it’s good for blunted/flat affect

Article number 1
"[…] After reviewing their findings, the researchers concluded that a single IV infusion of sodium nitroprusside produces a significant reduction in the symptoms of acute schizophrenia in just a four-hour time period. This reduction included both “positive” and “negative” symptoms, and remained in effect for a full month following treatment."

w w w.elementsbehavioralhealth.com/news-and-research/blood-pressure-medicine-works-for-schizophrenia/

Article number 2 (talking about the same study)
OBJECTIVE:
To examine the effectiveness and safety of a single intravenous administration of sodium nitroprusside (0.5 μg/kg/min for 4 hours) on the positive, negative, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.
DESIGN:
Single-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial performed from March 9, 2007, to March 12, 2009.
SETTING:
University teaching hospital in São Paulo, Brazil.
PARTICIPANTS:
Twenty inpatients aged 19 to 40 years with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who were in the first 5 years of the disease who are taking antipsychotics.
INTERVENTION:
Sodium nitroprusside administration.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:
The 18-item Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and the negative subscale of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale.
RESULTS:
After the infusion of sodium nitroprusside, a rapid (within 4 hours) improvement of symptoms was observed. The placebo and experimental groups had significant differences in the 18-item Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale total score and subscale scores, which persisted for 4 weeks after infusion.
CONCLUSIONS:
The results clearly show a therapeutic effect of sodium nitroprusside. If this drug is approved for routine clinical use in patients with schizophrenia, this discovery will be an important advance in the pharmacologic treatment of this devastating disorder.

w w w.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23699763

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2

Good find. I wonder why we haven’t heard more about this. Plenty of good news about it on Google.

3

Nevermind, here’s why

It couldn’t be repeated.

4

Yes but they don’t talk about negative symptoms, they only mention that positive symptoms and spatial working memory results were negative in the article

and also, read this article, the writer has first-hand experience with some patient being treated:

"I met with Jaime, Joao Paulo and their team at the University of Sao Paulo Hospital in Ribeirao Preto and was able to observe a treatment. When I first met the patient, whose infusion had begun 10 minutes before, she appeared anxious and tended to avoid eye contact. When I returned 90 minutes later, she was engaged in an art activity and was eager to show me what she had created. She smiled broadly and even tested her English vocabulary a little. The researchers said that they often see an improvement in the patients’ affect over the course of the infusion, and they are trying to find ways to measure this more objectively. Although data are still limited, the effect in treatment-resistant patients tends to be more delayed."
h t t p: // bcpsychosis.org/2014/08/28/brazil-the-use-of-nitrous-prusside-for-schizophrenia/

5

I’ve had high hopes for this drug. As far as I know it’s currently being tested here in the US for the treatment of sz psychosis. I read one report that said it had failed and another that says trials will be over in the first quarter of 2017. I like the idea of getting a monthly transfusion to treat my symptoms rather than taking conventional antipsychotics.

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