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Measuring liability for schizophrenia using optimized antisaccade stimulus parameters
Author(s) -
McDowell Jennifer E.,
MylesWorsley Marina,
Coon Hilary,
Byerley William,
Clementz Brett A.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1017/s0048577299980836
Subject(s) - psychology , stimulus (psychology) , cognitive psychology , audiology , neuroscience , medicine
The ability to identify unaffected gene carriers within families may be crucial to the success of schizophrenia genetics studies. Data collected from three family samples ( N = 365) demonstrated that poor antisaccade performance is an exceptionally promising indicator of liability for schizophrenia. A particular antisaccade task version provides large separations (5–6 sigma) between proband and normal groups. Poor antisaccade performance alone correctly identified 70% of patients in California, Utah, and Micronesia schizophrenia samples. Twenty‐five to 50% of these patients' nonpsychotic first‐degree relatives also had poor antisaccade performance, yielding risk ratios around 20:1 for simplex and 50:1 for multiplex schizophrenia families. Poor antisaccade performance is associated with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex pathology, suggesting that dysfunction of this circuitry also may predispose individuals to developing this disease.