Antisaccade performance is related to genetic loading for schizophrenia
Nadine Petrovsky1, Frank Weiss-Motz, Svenja Schulze-Rauschenbach
1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Str. 25, D-53105 Bonn, Germany. Nadine.Petrovsky@ukb.uni-bonn.de
Schizophrenia patients' parents showed increased errors and longer reaction times in antisaccade eye movement tasks, suggesting oculomotor impairments are linked to genetic risk for schizophrenia.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Ophthalmology
Background:
- Oculomotor system disturbances are potential endophenotypes for schizophrenia.
- Schizophrenia patients and relatives exhibit antisaccade task impairments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate oculomotor performance in parents of schizophrenia patients.
- To assess the association between antisaccade task performance and genetic loading for schizophrenia.
Main Methods:
- Utilized prosaccade and antisaccade tasks with an overlap-paradigm.
- Recorded eye movements using infrared oculography in 41 parents and 22 controls.
- Grouped parents based on family history of schizophrenia (positive vs. negative).
Main Results:
- Parents of schizophrenia patients made significantly more antisaccade direction errors than controls.
- A linear increase in antisaccade errors and latencies was observed with increasing genetic loading.
- No significant differences were found in prosaccade task performance between groups.
Conclusions:
- Antisaccade task impairment is associated with genetic loading for schizophrenia.
- Oculomotor abnormalities may serve as a biomarker for schizophrenia risk.
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