INTRODUCTION | home

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is organizing an initiative titled Consensus Development for Functional Endpoints in Schizophrenia Research (Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia: Initiative to Develop a Functional Capacity Measure and to Translate the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery) to identify co-primary functional endpoints that can be used in trials of drugs for improving cognition in schizophrenia. This initiative – co-chaired by Stephen R. Marder, M.D. from UCLA and Brendon Binneman, M.D. from Pfizer Global Research and Development -- was developed through an active collaboration among individuals from government, industry, and academia.

Individuals with an interest in this area are invited to attend a public meeting at the Marriott Bethesda North Hotel and Conference Center in Bethesda, Maryland on August 21-22, 2007. The purpose of the meeting will be to provide an overview of the types of measures that can be used to describe functioning in schizophrenia for international clinical trials, to develop a consensus regarding the criteria for selecting measures for this instrument, and to discuss the development of a clinical study to evaluate the instrument’s validity and its psychometric characteristics.

We believe that this meeting will play a very important role in facilitating the development of both pharmacological and psychosocial interventions that address the cognitive impairments in schizophrenia. We sincerely hope that
you will be able to join us in Bethesda.