Minor physical anomalies in schizophrenia: cognitive, neurological and other clinical correlates

Minor physical anomalies (MPAs) are minor congenital malformations which are found with significantly increased frequency among both patients with schizophrenia and their siblings, suggesting the effect of early developmental disturbance in their families. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between these signs of early dysmorphogenesis and cognitive and neurological dysfunction in the patients and their siblings as well as the clinical characteristics of the patients. Sixty patients with schizophrenia, 21 nonpsychotic siblings and 75 normal comparison subjects were studied. Increased rates of cognitive and neurological dysfunction and high MPA scores were found in both the patients and their siblings. High rates of MPAs were not significantly related to cognitive or neurological dysfunction in the patients or siblings, or to premorbid history or other characteristics of the clinical disease process in the patients. These results suggest that MPAs are possibly markers of general early neuromaldevelopment rather than markers of a specific cognitive/neurological or clinical subtype of schizophrenia.