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Updated: Aug 22, 2026

Measurement of Fronto-limbic Activity Using an Emotional Oddball Task in Children with Familial High Risk for Schizophrenia
Published on: December 2, 2015
Childhood onset schizophrenia: familial neurocognitive measures
Peter A Gochman1, Deanna Greenstein, Alexandra Sporn
1Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 3N202, Bethesda, MD 20892-1600, USA. peterg@codon.nih.gov
Objective:
Early onset disorders may have more salient familial/genetic etiology. Neurocognitive deficits which are seen in families of adult onset schizophrenic patients were examined in healthy family members of patients with childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS).
Methods:
Trail Making Tests (TMT) A and B, Wechsler Intelligence Scale-Revised Digit Span and Vocabulary subtests were administered to 67 parents and 24 siblings of patients with childhood-onset schizophrenia and 114 healthy community controls (CC) comparable in sex, age, and educational level.
Results:
COS siblings performed significantly more poorly than did controls on Trails Making Test B with a trend for poorer performance evident on Trails Making Test A. COS parents performed more poorly than controls only on Trails Making Test A.
Conclusions:
Healthy first-degree relatives of COS probands have subtle deficits in tests involving oculomotor/psychomotor speed, working memory and executive function. This provides further support for continuity between COS and later onset schizophrenia and for a familial/genetic factor associated with the illness.
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