Asaf Caspi - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Asaf Caspi

Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, 2000

A computer-based method for the assessment of body image distortions in anorexia nervosa and othe... more A computer-based method for the assessment of body image distortions in anorexia nervosa and other eating-disordered patients is presented. At the core of the method is a realistic pictorial simulation of lifelike weight-changes, applied to a real source image of the patient. The patients, using a graphical user interface, adjust their body shapes until they meet their self-perceived appearance. Measuring

The Israel journal of psychiatry and related sciences, 2008

The psychiatric sequelae of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with a variety of psychiat... more The psychiatric sequelae of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders, such as eating disorders, depression, posttraumatic-stress disorder and borderline personality disorder. This study examined the association of CSA and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in adults. Frequency of CSA was examined among 30 OCD patients and in two control groups: 17 patients with panic disorder (PD) and 26 non-psychiatric rheumatic patients (NPRP). Study tool was a semi-structured interview. A significantly higher frequency of CSA involving physical contact was found among the OCD (53.3%) and PD patients (52.9%) as compared to NPRP (23.1%). No significant differences were found in the frequencies of non-contact CSA. Differences could partially be attributed to the tendency of psychiatric patients to provide personal information, especially when motivated to pinpoint an external factor for their illness. A positive association was found between contact-CSA and...

Psychiatry Research, 2002

Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 2004

Between one-third and one-half of the individuals who meet diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia ... more Between one-third and one-half of the individuals who meet diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia remain actively ill despite optimal pharmacological treatment. These individuals tend to progressively deteriorate in terms of social and vocational functioning despite major public and private investments in their rehabilitation. For patients who do not respond to the first prescribed antipsychotic drug, current clinical practice is to switch to a second and a third drug, and eventually to clozapine, the only antipsychotic drug proven to be effective in treatment-refractory schizophrenia (TRS). Occasionally, two antipsychotics are given concomitantly or psychotropic drugs are added to antipsychotic drugs; however, very few empirical data exist to support this practice. Although there are many exceptions, patients who do not benefit from the first prescribed drug will not benefit from any pharmacological intervention. Therefore, efforts are under way to determine the reason for lack of r...

Schizophrenia Research, 2003

Schizophrenia Research, 2006

Schizophrenia Research, 2010

and 16 s OFF-period task performed in the scanner. Participants were instructed to stay relaxed b... more and 16 s OFF-period task performed in the scanner. Participants were instructed to stay relaxed but alert between stimulations and to attend to the stimuli when they occurred. fMRI data acquisition: Scanning was performed on a 3T Philips Achieva MRI scanner (Philips, Netherlands). 167 whole-head BOLD contrast gradient-echo echo-planar images were acquired using an eight-channel SENSE head coil with SENSE factor 2 in anterior-posterior direction, TR/TE 1436/35 ms, and a voxel size of 3 mm×3 mm×4 mm 3 . fMRI data analysis: Group independent component analysis was performed on preprocessed BOLD data (GIFT toolbox; http://icatb.sourceforge.net). 6 spatial components were identified. These represented the salience network (insula and ACC); the central executive network (left fronto-parietal and right frontoparietal cortex); and the DMN (medio-frontal and medio-parietal cortex). FNC was assessed using constrained-lagged correlation between components (FNC toolbox; http://icatb.sourceforge.net). Maximal lagged correlation (-5 to + 5 seconds) was examined between all pairwise combinations of components. Maximum Pearson correlation value and corresponding lag were calculated for each participant and averaged for each group. Group comparisons were performed on the maximal correlation coefficients. Results: Widespread FNC was found in both groups. Significantly reduced FNC was observed in schizophrenia compared to controls between: (i) the insula and ACC; (ii) insula and medio-frontal DMN; and (iii) left central executive network and medio-parietal DMN. There was no evidence of increased FNC during information processing in schizophrenia. Calculation of event-related average components in addition to the FNC analysis revealed that, while in healthy individuals insula activity preceded ACC activity, in individuals with schizophrenia this temporal relationship was weaker. Discussion: Reduced salience network connectivity during information processing in individuals with schizophrenia suggests a pathophysiological disturbance to the system which effects changes between contextually-relevant functional brain states. This aberrance may in turn provide a mechanistic explanation of several clinical features of the disorder.

Schizophrenia Research, 2009

Background: Refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia and amblyopia), like schizophrenia, have a stron... more Background: Refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia and amblyopia), like schizophrenia, have a strong genetic cause, and dopamine has been proposed as a potential mediator in their pathophysiology. The present study explored the association between refractive errors in adolescence and schizophrenia, and the potential familiality of this association. Methods: The Israeli Draft Board carries a mandatory standardized visual accuracy assessment. 678,674 males consecutively assessed by the Draft Board and found to be psychiatrically healthy at age 17 were followed for psychiatric hospitalization with schizophrenia using the Israeli National Psychiatric Hospitalization Case Registry. Sib-ships were also identified within the cohort.

Schizophrenia Research, 2008

Schizophrenia Research, 2007

Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2008

Background: Evidence indicates an association between older parents at birth and increased risk f... more Background: Evidence indicates an association between older parents at birth and increased risk for schizophrenia and autism. Patients with schizophrenia and autism and their first-degree relatives have impaired social functioning; hence, impaired social functioning is probably an intermediate phenotype of the illness. This study tested the hypothesis that advanced father's age at birth would be associated with poorer social functioning in the general population. To test this hypothesis, we examined the association between parental age at birth and the social functioning of their adolescent male offspring in a population-based study. Methods: Subjects were 403 486, 16-to 17-year-old Israeli-born male adolescents assessed by the Israeli Draft Board. The effect of parental age on social functioning was assessed in analyses controlling for cognitive functioning, the other parent's age, parental socioeconomic status, birth order, and year of draft board assessment. Results: Compared with offspring of parents aged 25-29 years, the prevalence of poor social functioning was increased both in offspring of fathers younger than 20 years (odds ratio [OR] 1.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08-1.49) and in offspring of fathers 45 years old (OR 1.52, 95% CI 1.43-1.61). Male adolescent children of mothers aged 40 years and above were 1.15 (95% CI 1.07-1.24) times more likely to have poor social functioning. Conclusions: These modest associations between parental age and poor social functioning in the general population parallel the associations between parental age and risk for schizophrenia and autism and suggest that the risk pathways between advanced parental age and schizophrenia and autism might, at least partially, include mildly deleterious effects on social functioning.

The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2004

Compared with the general population, individuals suffering from schizophrenia are more likely to... more Compared with the general population, individuals suffering from schizophrenia are more likely to be overweight, a finding attributed to the effect of antipsychotic medications, poor nutrition, and sedentary lifestyle. As evidence accumulates indicating that some aspects of the illness manifest before the onset of psychosis and establishment of the diagnosis, it has been suggested that increased weight, like other metabolic dysfunctions, might precede active illness. Data on height and weight of 203,257 male adolescents assessed by the Israeli Draft Board, and followed for 2-6 years for later hospitalization for schizophrenia using the Israeli National Psychiatric Hospitalization Case Registry, were analyzed. From the entire cohort, 309 (0.15%) were later hospitalized for schizophrenia (ICD-10). After removing adolescents with evidence of illness before or within 1 year of the Draft Board assessment, 204 future schizophrenia patients were available for analysis. Compared with the rest of the cohort, future schizophrenia patients had lower body mass indexes (21.24 +/- 3.3 kg/m2 vs. 21.77 +/- 3.5 kg/m2; F = 4.682, df = 1, p = .03) and weighed slightly but significantly less (64.2 +/- 11.6 kg vs. 66.3 +/- 12.0 kg; F = 6.615, df = 1, p = .01). The mean height of the future patients did not differ significantly from the mean height of the remaining cohort (173.63 +/- 6.7 cm vs. 174.40 +/- 6.9 cm; F = 2.520, df = 1, p = .112). When reanalyzing the data, controlling for physical activity and socioeconomic status, the differences between the groups remained significant. Before the onset of illness, future schizophrenia patients are not heavier compared with their peers. This implies that the increased weight of patients with schizophrenia is related to illness effects, including the effects of antipsychotic medication.

Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 2006

IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 2001

Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 2008

Retrospective studies indicate that patients with psychotic disorders and schizophrenia often suf... more Retrospective studies indicate that patients with psychotic disorders and schizophrenia often suffer from depressive symptoms before the onset of psychosis. In a historicalprospective design, we studied the association between dysthymia in adolescence and later hospitalization for psychotic disorders and schizophrenia.

Biological Psychiatry, 2003

Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005

Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, 2000

A computer-based method for the assessment of body image distortions in anorexia nervosa and othe... more A computer-based method for the assessment of body image distortions in anorexia nervosa and other eating-disordered patients is presented. At the core of the method is a realistic pictorial simulation of lifelike weight-changes, applied to a real source image of the patient. The patients, using a graphical user interface, adjust their body shapes until they meet their self-perceived appearance. Measuring

The Israel journal of psychiatry and related sciences, 2008

The psychiatric sequelae of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with a variety of psychiat... more The psychiatric sequelae of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders, such as eating disorders, depression, posttraumatic-stress disorder and borderline personality disorder. This study examined the association of CSA and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in adults. Frequency of CSA was examined among 30 OCD patients and in two control groups: 17 patients with panic disorder (PD) and 26 non-psychiatric rheumatic patients (NPRP). Study tool was a semi-structured interview. A significantly higher frequency of CSA involving physical contact was found among the OCD (53.3%) and PD patients (52.9%) as compared to NPRP (23.1%). No significant differences were found in the frequencies of non-contact CSA. Differences could partially be attributed to the tendency of psychiatric patients to provide personal information, especially when motivated to pinpoint an external factor for their illness. A positive association was found between contact-CSA and...

Psychiatry Research, 2002

Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 2004

Between one-third and one-half of the individuals who meet diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia ... more Between one-third and one-half of the individuals who meet diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia remain actively ill despite optimal pharmacological treatment. These individuals tend to progressively deteriorate in terms of social and vocational functioning despite major public and private investments in their rehabilitation. For patients who do not respond to the first prescribed antipsychotic drug, current clinical practice is to switch to a second and a third drug, and eventually to clozapine, the only antipsychotic drug proven to be effective in treatment-refractory schizophrenia (TRS). Occasionally, two antipsychotics are given concomitantly or psychotropic drugs are added to antipsychotic drugs; however, very few empirical data exist to support this practice. Although there are many exceptions, patients who do not benefit from the first prescribed drug will not benefit from any pharmacological intervention. Therefore, efforts are under way to determine the reason for lack of r...

Schizophrenia Research, 2003

Schizophrenia Research, 2006

Schizophrenia Research, 2010

and 16 s OFF-period task performed in the scanner. Participants were instructed to stay relaxed b... more and 16 s OFF-period task performed in the scanner. Participants were instructed to stay relaxed but alert between stimulations and to attend to the stimuli when they occurred. fMRI data acquisition: Scanning was performed on a 3T Philips Achieva MRI scanner (Philips, Netherlands). 167 whole-head BOLD contrast gradient-echo echo-planar images were acquired using an eight-channel SENSE head coil with SENSE factor 2 in anterior-posterior direction, TR/TE 1436/35 ms, and a voxel size of 3 mm×3 mm×4 mm 3 . fMRI data analysis: Group independent component analysis was performed on preprocessed BOLD data (GIFT toolbox; http://icatb.sourceforge.net). 6 spatial components were identified. These represented the salience network (insula and ACC); the central executive network (left fronto-parietal and right frontoparietal cortex); and the DMN (medio-frontal and medio-parietal cortex). FNC was assessed using constrained-lagged correlation between components (FNC toolbox; http://icatb.sourceforge.net). Maximal lagged correlation (-5 to + 5 seconds) was examined between all pairwise combinations of components. Maximum Pearson correlation value and corresponding lag were calculated for each participant and averaged for each group. Group comparisons were performed on the maximal correlation coefficients. Results: Widespread FNC was found in both groups. Significantly reduced FNC was observed in schizophrenia compared to controls between: (i) the insula and ACC; (ii) insula and medio-frontal DMN; and (iii) left central executive network and medio-parietal DMN. There was no evidence of increased FNC during information processing in schizophrenia. Calculation of event-related average components in addition to the FNC analysis revealed that, while in healthy individuals insula activity preceded ACC activity, in individuals with schizophrenia this temporal relationship was weaker. Discussion: Reduced salience network connectivity during information processing in individuals with schizophrenia suggests a pathophysiological disturbance to the system which effects changes between contextually-relevant functional brain states. This aberrance may in turn provide a mechanistic explanation of several clinical features of the disorder.

Schizophrenia Research, 2009

Background: Refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia and amblyopia), like schizophrenia, have a stron... more Background: Refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia and amblyopia), like schizophrenia, have a strong genetic cause, and dopamine has been proposed as a potential mediator in their pathophysiology. The present study explored the association between refractive errors in adolescence and schizophrenia, and the potential familiality of this association. Methods: The Israeli Draft Board carries a mandatory standardized visual accuracy assessment. 678,674 males consecutively assessed by the Draft Board and found to be psychiatrically healthy at age 17 were followed for psychiatric hospitalization with schizophrenia using the Israeli National Psychiatric Hospitalization Case Registry. Sib-ships were also identified within the cohort.

Schizophrenia Research, 2008

Schizophrenia Research, 2007

Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2008

Background: Evidence indicates an association between older parents at birth and increased risk f... more Background: Evidence indicates an association between older parents at birth and increased risk for schizophrenia and autism. Patients with schizophrenia and autism and their first-degree relatives have impaired social functioning; hence, impaired social functioning is probably an intermediate phenotype of the illness. This study tested the hypothesis that advanced father's age at birth would be associated with poorer social functioning in the general population. To test this hypothesis, we examined the association between parental age at birth and the social functioning of their adolescent male offspring in a population-based study. Methods: Subjects were 403 486, 16-to 17-year-old Israeli-born male adolescents assessed by the Israeli Draft Board. The effect of parental age on social functioning was assessed in analyses controlling for cognitive functioning, the other parent's age, parental socioeconomic status, birth order, and year of draft board assessment. Results: Compared with offspring of parents aged 25-29 years, the prevalence of poor social functioning was increased both in offspring of fathers younger than 20 years (odds ratio [OR] 1.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08-1.49) and in offspring of fathers 45 years old (OR 1.52, 95% CI 1.43-1.61). Male adolescent children of mothers aged 40 years and above were 1.15 (95% CI 1.07-1.24) times more likely to have poor social functioning. Conclusions: These modest associations between parental age and poor social functioning in the general population parallel the associations between parental age and risk for schizophrenia and autism and suggest that the risk pathways between advanced parental age and schizophrenia and autism might, at least partially, include mildly deleterious effects on social functioning.

The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2004

Compared with the general population, individuals suffering from schizophrenia are more likely to... more Compared with the general population, individuals suffering from schizophrenia are more likely to be overweight, a finding attributed to the effect of antipsychotic medications, poor nutrition, and sedentary lifestyle. As evidence accumulates indicating that some aspects of the illness manifest before the onset of psychosis and establishment of the diagnosis, it has been suggested that increased weight, like other metabolic dysfunctions, might precede active illness. Data on height and weight of 203,257 male adolescents assessed by the Israeli Draft Board, and followed for 2-6 years for later hospitalization for schizophrenia using the Israeli National Psychiatric Hospitalization Case Registry, were analyzed. From the entire cohort, 309 (0.15%) were later hospitalized for schizophrenia (ICD-10). After removing adolescents with evidence of illness before or within 1 year of the Draft Board assessment, 204 future schizophrenia patients were available for analysis. Compared with the rest of the cohort, future schizophrenia patients had lower body mass indexes (21.24 +/- 3.3 kg/m2 vs. 21.77 +/- 3.5 kg/m2; F = 4.682, df = 1, p = .03) and weighed slightly but significantly less (64.2 +/- 11.6 kg vs. 66.3 +/- 12.0 kg; F = 6.615, df = 1, p = .01). The mean height of the future patients did not differ significantly from the mean height of the remaining cohort (173.63 +/- 6.7 cm vs. 174.40 +/- 6.9 cm; F = 2.520, df = 1, p = .112). When reanalyzing the data, controlling for physical activity and socioeconomic status, the differences between the groups remained significant. Before the onset of illness, future schizophrenia patients are not heavier compared with their peers. This implies that the increased weight of patients with schizophrenia is related to illness effects, including the effects of antipsychotic medication.

Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 2006

IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 2001

Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 2008

Retrospective studies indicate that patients with psychotic disorders and schizophrenia often suf... more Retrospective studies indicate that patients with psychotic disorders and schizophrenia often suffer from depressive symptoms before the onset of psychosis. In a historicalprospective design, we studied the association between dysthymia in adolescence and later hospitalization for psychotic disorders and schizophrenia.

Biological Psychiatry, 2003

Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005