Terry Goldberg (Zucker Hillside Hospital) presented data derived from a treatment trial of 104 patients with first-episode schizophrenia and 84 healthy controls. The study, comparing risperidone and olanzapine, included three neurocognitive assessments at baseline, 6 weeks, and 16 weeks. Goldberg first provided evidence of significant baseline neurocognitive impairment in the first-episode sample, consistent with the extent and severity noted in more chronic patients with schizophrenia, supporting this as a trait-like feature of the disease. Further, patients demonstrated improved performance over time on nearly all cognitive measures regardless of treatment group; however, the magnitude of improvement in the patient group was nearly identical to that noted in the healthy controls, who were tested at the same three time points. These data suggest that the cognitive gains reported in both patients and controls might be best attributed to practice effects due to repeated exposure to the test materials, as opposed to an actual cognitive-enhancing benefit of the second-generation antipsychotics. In light of these findings, Goldberg proposed the possibility that previous trials, which have reported cognitive improvement with SGA treatment but have lacked a healthy control sample, might be, in fact, measuring practice effects as opposed to true cognitive enhancement. These data are now in press in the Archives of General Psychiatry.