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Comparative assessment of saccadic eye movements, psychomotor and cognitive performance in schizophrenics, their first‐degree relatives and control subjects
Author(s) -
Schreiber H.,
Rothmeier J.,
Becker W.,
Jürgens R.,
Born J.,
StolzBorn G.,
Westphal K. P.,
Kornhuber H.H.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1995.tb09766.x
Subject(s) - psychomotor learning , saccadic masking , psychology , stroop effect , audiology , cognition , wechsler adult intelligence scale , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , eye movement , developmental psychology , psychiatry , medicine , neuroscience
This study is aimed at detecting biological markers for schizophrenia. For this purpose, a total of 70 subjects (21 schizophrenic patients, 27 first‐degree relatives and 22 controls) performed a series of tests assessing various attentional, psychomotor and cognitive functions and saccadic eye movements. The schizophrenics performed significantly poorer than both high‐risk and control subjects in most of the tests demanding attention, concentration and psychomotor speed (d2 concentration test, reaction times and Stroop test of perceptual interference) as well as cognition (Wechsler intelligence scales). On the other hand, these tests did not differentiate between the high‐risk and control subjects. This distinction, however, could be made by two other parameters: hypometria score of saccadic eye movements and ratio of verbal to performance intelligence scores. Both parameters were significantly increased in both the schizophrenic and the high‐risk group, distinguishing both from the control group. The relevance of these findings in indicating a schizophrenic disposition is discussed.