Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Mar 24;11(1):49.
doi: 10.1038/s41537-025-00578-1.

Cognitive assessment in the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Schizophrenia Program: harmonization priorities and strategies in a diverse international sample

Kelly Allott  1   2 Walid Yassin  3 Luis Alameda  4   5 Tashrif Billah  6 Owen Borders  6 Kate Buccilli  7   8 Ricardo E Carrión  9   10 Rolando I Castillo-Passi  11   12 Kang Ik K Cho  6 Kota Chin  6 Michael J Coleman  6 Beau-Luke Colton  7   8 Sebastián Corral  13   14 Dominic Dwyer  7   8 Kristina Ballestad Gundersen  15   16 Ruben C Gur  17 Gil D Hoftman  18 Grace R Jacobs  6 Sinead Kelly  6 Kathryn E Lewandowski  19   20 Patricia J Marcy  18 Priya Matneja  18 Danielle McLaughlin  18 Angela R Nunez  21   22 Setari Parsa  3 Nora Penzel  23 Susan Ray  18 Jenna M Reinen  24   25 Kosha Ruparel  17 Michael S Sand  26 Gennarina Santorelli  3 Johanna Seitz-Holland  6   23 Jessica Spark  7   8 Zailyn Tamayo  21 Andrew Thompson  7   8   27 Sophie Tod  7   8 Cassandra M J Wannan  7   8 Alana Wickham  6 Stephen J Wood  7   8   28 Eirini Zoupou  17 Jean Addington  29 Alan Anticevic  21   30 Celso Arango  31 Nicholas J K Breitborde  32 Matthew R Broome  33   34 Kristin S Cadenhead  35 Monica E Calkins  17 Eric Yu Hai Chen  36   37 Jimmy Choi  38 Philippe Conus  4 Cheryl M Corcoran  39 Barbara A Cornblatt  9   10 Lauren M Ellman  40 Paolo Fusar-Poli  41   42 Pablo A Gaspar  10   11 Carla Gerber  43   44 Louise Birkedal Glenthøj  15   16 Leslie E Horton  45 Christy Lai Ming Hui  36 Joseph Kambeitz  46 Lana Kambeitz-Ilankovic  46   47 Matcheri Keshavan  3 Sung-Wan Kim  48   49 Nikolaos Koutsouleris  41   47 Jun Soo Kwon  50   51 Kerstin Langbein  52 Daniel Mamah  53 Covadonga M Diaz-Caneja  31 Daniel H Mathalon  54   55 Vijay A Mittal  56 Merete Nordentoft  57   58 Godfrey D Pearlson  59   60 Diana O Perkins  61 Jesus Perez  62   63 Albert R Powers 3rd  22   60 Jack Rogers  33   64 Fred W Sabb  43 Jason Schiffman  65 Jai L Shah  66   67 Steven M Silverstein  68 Stefan Smesny  52 Gregory P Strauss  69 Judy L Thompson  68 Rachel Upthegrove  33   37 Swapna K Verma  70   71 Jijun Wang  72 Daniel H Wolf  17 Ofer Pasternak  6   23 Sylvain Bouix  73 Patrick D McGorry  7   8 John M Kane  9   10 Rene S Kahn  39 Carrie E Bearden  74   75 Martha E Shenton  76   77 Scott W Woods  22   60 Barnaby Nelson  7   8 Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Schizophrenia (AMP® SCZ)William S Stone  3
Affiliations

Cognitive assessment in the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Schizophrenia Program: harmonization priorities and strategies in a diverse international sample

Kelly Allott et al. Schizophrenia (Heidelb). .

Abstract

Cognitive impairment occurs at higher rates in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis relative to healthy peers, and it contributes unique variance to multivariate prediction models of transition to psychosis. Such impairment is considered a core biomarker of schizophrenia. Thus, cognition is a key domain measured in the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® program for Schizophrenia (AMP SCZ initiative). The aim of this paper is to describe the rationale, processes, considerations, and final harmonization of the cognitive battery used in AMP SCZ across the two data collection networks. This battery comprises tests of general intellect and specific cognitive domains. We estimate premorbid intelligence at baseline and measure current intelligence at baseline and 2 years. Eight tests from the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (PennCNB), which measure verbal learning and memory, sensorimotor ability, attention, emotion recognition, working memory, processing speed, verbal memory, visual memory, and motor speed are administered repeatedly at baseline, and four follow-up timepoints over 2 years.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare the following competing interests: K.A. is on the Australian Cognitive Impairment Associated with Schizophrenia Advisory Board for Boehringer Ingelheim and receives honorary funds; D.D. has received honorary funds for one educational seminar for CSL Sequiris; A.A. is a cofounder, serves as a member of the Board of Directors, as a scientific adviser, and holds equity in Manifest Technologies, Inc.; and is a coinventor on the following patent: Anticevic A, Murray JD, Ji JL: Systems and Methods for NeuroBehavioral Relationships in Dimensional Geometric Embedding, PCT International Application No. PCT/US2119/022110, filed Mar 13, 2019; E.C. has received speaker fees at non-promotional educational events; P.F.P. has received research funds or personal fees from Lundbeck, Angelini, Menarini, Sunovion, Boehringer Ingelheim, Proxymm Science, Otsuka, outside the current study; J.K. has received speaking or consulting fees from Janssen, Boehringer Ingelheim, ROVI and Lundbeck; C.D.C. has received grant support from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and honoraria or travel support from Angelini, Janssen, and Viatris; R.U. has received speaker fees at non promotional educational event: Otsuka: Consultancy for Viatris and Springer HealtCCare. Honorary General Secretary British Association for Psychopharmacology (unpaid); JMK is a consultant to or receives honoraria and/or travel support and/or speakers bureau: Alkermes, Allergan, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Cerevel, Dainippon Sumitomo, H. Lundbeck, HealthRhythms, HLS Therapeutics, Indivior, Intracellular Therapies, Janssen Pharmaceutical, Johnson & Johnson, Karuna Therapeutics/Bristol Meyer-Squibb, LB Pharmaceuticals, Mapi, Maplight, Merck, Minerva, Neurocrine, Newron, Novartis, NW PharmaTech, Otsuka, Roche, Saladax, Sunovion, Teva. Advisory Boards: Alkermes, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Cerevel, Click Therapeutics, Karuna/BMS, Lundbeck, Merck, Newron, Novartis, Otsuka, Sumitomo, Teva, Terran Grant Support: Lundbeck, Janssen, Otsuka, Sunovion Shareholder: Cerevel (public/stock), HealthRhythms (private/stock options), Karuna/BMS (public), LB Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (private/stock options), North Shore Therapeutics (private/stock), Vanguard Research Group (private/40% owner) Receives Royalties: Up to Date; RSK provides consulting to Alkermes, Boehringer-Ingelheim; S.W.W. has received speaking fees from the American Psychiatric Association and from Medscape Features. He has been granted US patent no. 8492418 B2 for a method of treating prodromal schizophrenia with glycine agonists. He owns stock in NW PharmaTech; C.A. has been a consultant to or has received honoraria or grants from Acadia, Angelini, Biogen, Boehringer, Gedeon Richter, Janssen Cilag, Lundbeck, Medscape, Menarini, Minerva, Otsuka, Pfizer, Roche, Sage, Servier, Shire, Schering Plough, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, Sunovion and Takeda; G.D.H. has been a consultant for Bristol Myers Squibb; P.J.M. has been a consultant for Otsuka and TEVA; and Z.T. has been a consult for Manifest Technologies. All other authors report no competing interests. C.M.C. is an Associate Editor of Schizophrenia.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Comparison between CHR and CC in the AMP SCZ Cognition Battery at baseline.
a current IQ, b verbal learning, c attention, d emotion recognition, e working memory, f processing speed, g visual memory, h motor speed, i estimated premorbid IQ, j PennCNB composite. WRAT-5 Wide Range Achievement Test, IQ Full Scale Intelligence Quotient, SPLLT Short Penn List Learning Test, SPCPTNL Short Penn Continuous Performance Test, ER40 Penn Emotion Recognition Test, SFNB Short Fractal N-Back Test, DIGSYM Digit-Symbol Test, SVOLT Short Visual Object Learning Test, SCTAP Short Computerized Finger Tapping Test. CHR Clinical High Risk, CC Community Control. Composite is the average of all tests except IQ, SPLLT, and SVOLT. Significance level “***“<0.001, “**“<0.01, “*“<0.05, “NS” > 0.05.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Consistency and reliability of the AMP SCZ Cognition Battery between baseline and 8 weeks later for the CHR participants.
a attention, b emotion recognition, c working memory, d processing speed, e motor speed, f visual memory, g PennCNB composite. SPCPTNL Short Penn Continuous Performance Test, ER40 Penn Emotion Recognition Test, SFNB Short Fractal N-Back Test, DIGSYM Digit-Symbol Test, SVOLT Short Visual Object Learning Test, SCTAP Short Computerized Finger Tapping Test, CHR Clinical High Risk. Composite is the average of all tests except SVOLT. CHR Clinical High Risk. V1 Visit 1 (baseline), V2 Visit 2 (1 month after baseline). Significance level according to ICC, “⊗“<0.001, “⊕“<0.01, “⊖“<0.05, “NS” >0.05. Significance level according to paired comparisons “***“<0.001, “**“<0.01, “*“<0.05, “NS” > 0.05, with blue color indicating increase, and red decrease from baseline.

References

    1. McCutcheon, R. A., Keefe, R. S. E. & McGuire, P. K. Cognitive impairment in schizophrenia: aetiology, pathophysiology, and treatment. Mol. Psychiatry28, 1902–1918 (2023). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Catalan, A. et al. Neurocognitive functioning in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry78, 859–867 (2021). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Stainton, A. et al. Prevalence of cognitive impairments and strengths in the early course of psychosis and depression. Psychol. Med.53, 5945–5957 (2023). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bonivento, C. et al. Neurocognitive skills and vulnerability for psychosis in depression and across the psychotic spectrum: findings from the PRONIA Consortium. Br. J. Psychiatry223, 485–492 (2023). - PubMed
    1. Nuechterlein, K. H. et al. The MATRICS consensus cognitive battery, part 1: test selection, reliability, and validity. Am. J. Psychiatry165, 203–213 (2008). - PubMed