Hierarchical Pathways from Sensory Processing to Cognitive, Clinical, and Functional Impairments in Schizophrenia
AbstractCognitive impairment is a hallmark of schizophrenia and a robust predictor of functional outcomes. Impairments are found in all phases of the illness and are only moderately attenuated by currently approved therapeutics. Neurophysiological indices of sensory discrimination (ie, mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a amplitudes) and gamma-band auditory steady-state response (ASSR; power and phase locking) are translational biomarkers widely used in the development of novel therapeutics for neuropsychiatric disorders. It is unclear whether laboratory-based EEG measures add explanatory power to well-established models that...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 28, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Geolocation as a Digital Phenotyping Measure of Negative Symptoms and Functional Outcome
ConclusionsThese findings provide preliminary support for the reliability and validity of geolocation as an objective measure of negative symptoms and functional outcome. Geolocation offers enhanced precision and the ability to take a “big data” approach that facilitates sophisticated computational models. Near-continuous recordings and large numbers of samples may make geolocation a novel outcome measure for clinical trials due to enhanced power to detect treatment effects. (Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin)
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 27, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Hallucinations Research in a Time of Crisis
Across the globe, the coronavirus pandemic has had deep and persistent impacts on mental as well as physical health. Hallucinations researchers must work together to address a number of urgent new challenges, including to understand the effects of lockdown and social isolation on susceptibility to unusual experiences such as auditory and visual hallucinations, particular vulnerabilities to such experiences among older people, and non-veridical experiences of loved ones who —tragically and increasingly as a result of this terrible virus—are no longer there. (Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin)
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 27, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Nature, Nurture, and the Polygenic Risk Score for Schizophrenia
Technological progress is reshaping thenature versus nurture debate of disease causation. Fifty years ago, psychiatrists used to argue over whether schizophrenia was caused by a single gene or some unknown environmental factor. We now know that there exist a range of component causes, or risk factors, for schizophrenia, both genetic and environmental. So, what do we argue about now? Often the relative importance of the 2 sets of factors. The favorite measure of geneticists has been heritability, often quoted as 60% –80% for schizophrenia, but this disregards the evidence that heritability estimates are inaccurate in the ...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 23, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Theta Phase Synchrony Is Sensitive to Corollary Discharge Abnormalities in Early Illness Schizophrenia but Not in the Psychosis Risk Syndrome
ConclusionsTheta ITC-suppression during vocalization is a more sensitive index of corollary discharge-mediated auditory cortical suppression than N1 suppression and is more sensitive to corollary discharge dysfunction in ESZ than in PRS individuals. (Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin)
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 14, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
To See With Closed Eyes
I have always had this feeling that there was something deviating from the norm or different about me. As a child, I had a distinct feeling that my parents were not my parents. I was sure that I was adopted. Looking at my parents, I could not see myself in them. Back then, I did not like talking and especially to my parents. Not because I did not like them, but I was very aware that what I had inside of me, I could not talk to anyone about. I felt that I had another way of being in the world than the one I saw around me. I was seeing it with different eyes. (Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin)
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 14, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Absence: Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, and Marriage
I suffered the absence of my husband this past summer. He attempted with great courage and strength to change the medication he takes for his schizophrenia to one that has less side effects. He disappeared from me for weeks, months, lost in miasma of suffering, curled in a fetal position on the couch. (Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin)
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 7, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Antisaccade Deficits in Schizophrenia Can Be Driven by Attentional Relevance of the Stimuli
AbstractThe antisaccade task is considered a test of cognitive control because it creates a conflict between the strong bottom-up signal produced by the cue and the top-down goal of shifting gaze to the opposite side of the display. Antisaccade deficits in schizophrenia are thought to reflect impaired top-down inhibition of the prepotent bottom-up response to the cue. However, the cue is also a highly task-relevant stimulus that must be covertly attended to determine where to shift gaze. We tested the hypothesis that difficulty in overcoming the attentional relevance of the cue, rather than its bottom-up salience, is key i...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 7, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Latent Clinical-Anatomical Dimensions of Schizophrenia
AbstractWidespread structural brain abnormalities have been consistently reported in schizophrenia, but their relation to the heterogeneous clinical manifestations remains unknown. In particular, it is unclear whether anatomical abnormalities in discrete regions give rise to discrete symptoms or whether distributed abnormalities give rise to the broad clinical profile associated with schizophrenia. Here, we apply a multivariate data-driven approach to investigate covariance patterns between multiple-symptom domains and distributed brain abnormalities in schizophrenia. Structural magnetic resonance imaging and clinical data...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 3, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Real-Time Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Neurofeedback for the Relief of Distressing Auditory-Verbal Hallucinations: Methodological and Empirical Advances
AbstractAuditory-verbal hallucinations (AVH) are often associated with high levels of distress and disability in individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. In around 30% of individuals with distressing AVH and diagnosed with schizophrenia, traditional antipsychotic drugs have little or no effect. Thus, it is important to develop mechanistic models of AVH to inform new treatments. Recently a small number of studies have begun to explore the use of real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (rtfMRI-NF) for the treatment of AVH in individuals with schizophrenia. rtfMRI-NF protocols have been develop...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - August 2, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Cortical Gyrification, Psychotic-Like Experiences, and Cognitive Performance in Nonclinical Subjects
ConclusionOur results support a neurobiological psychosis spectrum, for the first time linking an early developmental imaging marker (rather than volume) to dimensional subclinical psychotic symptoms. While schizophrenia risk, neurodevelopment, and cognitive function might share genetic risk factors, additional mediation analyses did not confirm a mediating effect of cognition on the gyrification-psychopathology correlation. (Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin)
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - July 21, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Deficits in Glutamic Acid Decarboxylase 67 Immunoreactivity, Parvalbumin Interneurons, and Perineuronal Nets in the Inferior Colliculus of Subjects With Schizophrenia
AbstractAberrant processing of auditory stimuli is a prominent feature of schizophrenia (SZ). Prior studies have chronicled histological abnormalities in the auditory cortex of SZ subjects, but whether deficits exist at upstream, subcortical levels has yet to be established. En route to the auditory cortex, ascending information is integrated in the inferior colliculus (IC), a highly gamma amino butyric acid (GABA) ergic midbrain structure that is critically involved in auditory processing. The IC contains a dense population of parvalbumin-immunoreactive interneurons (PVIs), a cell type characterized by increased metabolic...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - July 18, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire for Children (SPQ-C): Factor Structure, Child Abuse, and Family History of Schizotypy
This study tests 5 competing models of the factor structure of the self-report Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire for Children (SPQ-C) and examines its relationship with a family history of schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), child abuse, and stability over time. Hypotheses were tested on 454 11- to 12-year-old schoolchildren and their caregivers. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a 3-factor structure of the SPQ-C (cognitive-perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized). Test-retest stability was relatively robust over 3 months (r = .67), 6 months (r = .64), and 12 months (r = .55), with acceptable internal reli...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - July 16, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Do Current Measures of Polygenic Risk for Mental Disorders Contribute to Population Variance in Mental Health?
AbstractThe polygenic risk score (PRS) allows for quantification of the relative contributions of genes and environment in population-based studies of mental health. We analyzed the impact of transdiagnostic schizophrenia PRS and measures of familial and environmental risk on the level of and change in general mental health (Short-Form-36 mental health) in the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study-2 general population sample, interviewed 4 times over a period of 9 years, yielding 8901 observations in 2380 individuals. Schizophrenia PRS, family history, somatic pain, and a range of environmental risks and soc...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - July 16, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
Longitudinal Assessment and Functional Neuroimaging of Movement Variability Reveal Novel Insights Into Motor Dysfunction in Clinical High Risk for Psychosis
AbstractMotor dysfunction in youth at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis is thought to reflect abnormal neurodevelopment within cortical-subcortical motor circuits and may be important for understanding clinical trajectories of CHR individuals. However, to date, our perspective of brain-behavior relationships has been informed solely by cross-sectional correlational studies linking behavior in the lab to brain structure or respective resting-state network connectivity. Here, we assess movement dysfunction from 2 perspectives: study 1 investigates the longitudinal progression of handwriting variability and positive symp...
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin - July 14, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research
