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Published on: November 21, 2013
Childhood-onset schizophrenia: smooth pursuit eye-tracking dysfunction in family members
Alexandra Sporn1, Deanna Greenstein, Nitin Gogtay
1Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Health, Bldg 10, Rm 3N202, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. sporna@intra.nimh.nih.gov
Background:
Childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS), a severe form of the disorder, is of interest for etiologic studies. Smooth pursuit eye-tracking dysfunction (ETD) is a biological marker for schizophrenia.
Aims:
To compare familial eye-tracking abnormalities for COS and adult-onset schizophrenia (AOS).
Method:
Eye-tracking performance for 70 COS parents, 64 AOS parents and 20 COS siblings was compared to their respective age-matched control groups.
Results:
COS and AOS parents had higher rate of dichotomously rated eye-tracking dysfunction than their respective controls (16% vs. 1% and 22% vs. 4%, respectively). COS parents and siblings also differed from controls on several continuous measures. However, scores for COS, AOS and control groups overlapped extensively.
Conclusions:
Genetic factors underlying eye-tracking dysfunction appear more salient for COS. However, eye-tracking measures have to be used with caution for endophenotypic definition due to low predictive power.
Declaration Of Interest:
The study was done at the National Institutes of Health.
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