The factor structure of schizophrenia spectrum signs and symptoms in first-degree relatives of schizophrenic patients from the ucla family members study (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 2008
The main objective of this ex post facto study is to compare the differences in cognitive functions and their relation to schizotypal personality traits between a group of unaffected parents of schizophrenic patients and a control group. A total of 52 unaffected biological parents of schizophrenic patients and 52 unaffected parents of unaffected subjects were assessed in measures of attention (Continuous Performance Test- Identical Pairs Version, CPT-IP), memory and verbal learning (California Verbal Learning Test, CVLT) as well as schizotypal personality traits (Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences, O-LIFE). The parents of the patients with schizophrenia differ from the parents of the control group in omission errors on the Continuous Performance Test- Identical Pairs, on a measure of recall and on two contrast measures of the California Verbal Learning Test. The associations between neuropsychological variables and schizotpyal traits are of a low magnitude. There...
NeuroImage, 2010
Attention deficits are common in schizophrenics and sometimes reported in their healthy relatives. The aim of this study was to analyse the behavioural performance and the brain activation of healthy siblings of schizophrenic patients during a sustained-attention task. Eleven healthy siblings of schizophrenic patients and eleven matched controls performed a Continuous Performance Test (CPT), during 1.5 T fMRI. The stimuli were presented at three difficulty-levels, using different degrees of degradation (0, 25 and 40%). There were no significant differences in CPT performance (mean reaction time and percentage of errors) between the two groups. Performance worsened with increasing degradation in both groups. Differences were found when comparing the BOLD signal change in the medial frontal gyrus/dorsal anterior cingulate, right precentral gyrus, bilateral posterior cingulate and bilateral insula. The most evident between group differences were observed in the left insula/inferior frontal gyrus: siblings showed a larger activation during wrong responses and a reduced activation during correct responses in the degraded runs. In conclusion, healthy siblings of schizophrenic patients showed differences in brain function in several brain regions previously reported in schizophrenic subjects, in the absence of behavioral attention deficits. The differences were greater in the two more difficult levels of attention demand and might be expressions of altered and/or compensatory mechanisms in subjects at increased risk for schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia Research, 1997
Selective attention was investigated in chronic schizophrenics and their first-degree relatives, classified as schizotypal and non-schizotypal according to DSM-III-R criteria, using two learning procedures. Latent Inhibition (LI) and the Kamin Blocking Effect (KBE). Based on previous findings, schizotypal relatives were predicted to show abolished LI and KBE, and the remaining groups, including a group of normal controls, intact effects. Although changes in the effect of preexposure in both procedures were observed in varying degrees in the clinical group, a surprising finding was a d~lay. in associative leamin~, regardless of diagnostic status, which IS not usually found m normal controls. Results suggest that membership of a schizophrenia-affected kin is associ~t~d~th reduce~~I and~E effects as well as with a deficit m simple associative learning, as compared to the usual performance of normal controls in the same procedures.
Biological Psychiatry, 2004
In nonpsychotic parents and siblings of schizophrenic patients, the recurrence risk ratios of sustained attention deficits, as measured by the continuous performance test (CPT), were examined with a series of cut-off points. Methods: Among 116 parents and 95 siblings of 91 schizophrenic probands in northern Taiwan, both undegraded and degraded sessions of the CPT were administered. Subjects' signal detection sensitivity of CPT performance (dЈ) was standardized against a community sample without (unadjusted z score) or with (adjusted z score) adjustment for age, gender, and educational level. Results: Differences in the risk ratios between the parents and siblings that were based on the unadjusted z scores of CPT dЈ diminished markedly if the adjusted z scores were used. As the cut-off point in the adjusted z score decreased from Ϫ2.5 to Ϫ3.0, the risk ratio increased continually for both the undegraded for siblings) and degraded (12.4 -102.7 for parents, 8.6 -72.0 for siblings) test. Conclusions: Stringent cut-off criteria of CPT deficits with adjustment for demographic features leads to recurrence risk ratios greater than those based on schizophrenia alone in both parents and siblings of schizophrenic patients.
Clinical features of latent inhibition in schizophrenia
Schizophrenia Research, 2001
Paradigms of Latent Inhibition (LI) are inter-species and derived from learning theories. They are considered as tools which allow the attentional processes to be studied. The absence of LI is interpreted as dif®culty in discriminating relevant and irrelevant stimuli. Abolition of LI has been shown in acute schizophrenics. The objectives of our study were partly to validate an LI paradigm, based on a contingency detection between two stimuli, in healthy subjects, and partly to analyse LI in schizophrenics. The study included 105 subjects (65 patients and 40 controls). Patients ful®lled the DSM IV diagnosis of schizophrenia. 35 in the acute phase and 30 in the chronic phase. We observed a loss of LI for acute schizophrenics, and an enhancement of LI for chronic schizophrenics. The variations in LI are interpreted from the perspective of a disturbance in the attentional processes. The LI status in acute schizophrenics appears to correlate with the clinical criteria with a prognostic value (low intensity of the negative dimension, late age at the ®rst hospitalization). Moreover, the enhancement of LI correlates with the negative dimension of schizophrenic disease. This correlation is found in acute and chronic schizophrenics. It suggests that the variations of LI may be an indicator of adaptive strategies to a cognitive dysfunction speci®c to schizophrenia. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
The relation between latent inhibition and symptom-types in young schizophrenics
Behavioural Brain Research, 2004
Latent inhibition (LI), retarded conditioning to a stimulus that has been previously repeatedly presented without reinforcement, was examined in young schizophrenics and normal controls using a within-subject visual search task. Healthy controls exhibited the usual LI effect. LI was potentiated in schizophrenics who simultaneously exhibited high levels of negative symptoms and low levels of positive symptoms. Schizophrenic groups with other combinations of positive and negative symptoms did not differ from controls. The pattern of data suggests that past inconsistencies in the LI-schizophrenia literature may be the result of opposing processes that are associated with positive and negative symptoms.
First-order relatives of schizophrenic patients are not impaired in the Continuous Performance Test
Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 2009
Sustained attention deficits measured by the Continuous Performance Test (CPT) have been reportedly proposed as an endophenotype of schizophrenia. One requirement for an endophenotype is that unaffected first-order relatives must show deteriorated performance compared to healthy controls. We investigated 56 schizophrenic patients, 33 nonaffected first-order relatives, and 36 healthy controls in a degraded and an undegraded version of the CPT of the AX type. Performance of relatives and controls was roughly identical whereas schizophrenic patients performed worse right from the beginning. These results add further evidence that a deficit in the CPT performance is not an endophenotype of schizophrenia in accordance with previous studies.
2000
We previously reported that the nonpsychotic relatives of schizophrenic patients exhibited disturbances in executive functioning, verbal and visual memory, auditory attention, mental control, and verbal ability. In a 4-year follow-up, we showed that the discriminating power of most of these tests was stable over time. Methods: In this report we compare 41 nonpsychotic persons who have only one schizophrenic first-degree relative (simplex families) with 36 nonpsychotic persons who have two schizophrenic first-degree relatives (multiplex families). Our goal was to test a hypothesis that neuropsychologic deficits would be worse among the latter. Results: Relatives from multiplex families differed significantly from controls on estimated intelligence, immediate and delayed logical memories, and immediate visual reproductions. In contrast, in comparisons with controls, relatives from simplex families only differed on immediate logical memories. Comparisons between relatives from multiplex and simplex families showed that the former group had significantly worse scores for estimated intelligence, immediate and delayed logical memories, and immediate visual reproductions. We also found group ϫ gender interactions: the worse performance of the multiplex group was seen for females. Conclusions: These results are consistent with the idea that neuropsychologic deficits in relatives of schizophrenic patients reflect their degree of genetic predisposition to schizophrenia. They also suggest hypotheses about gender differences in the familial transmission of the disorder.