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Early intermodal integration in offspring of parents with psychosis

Franziska Gamma1, Jill M Goldstein2, Larry J Seidman3

  • 1Center for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Les Toises, Lausanne, Switzerland;

Schizophrenia Bulletin
|August 30, 2013
PubMed

Insights

Infants with parents diagnosed with schizophrenia show significant early intermodal integration (EII) abnormalities, particularly in body and object relations. These findings highlight EII dysfunction as a key developmental risk indicator for schizophrenia.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Psychopathology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Identifying early developmental indicators is crucial for schizophrenia prediction and prevention.
  • Disturbed intermodality, or early intermodal integration (EII), is a proposed neurodevelopmental risk factor for schizophrenia.
  • EII involves an infant's ability to link motility and perception across different sensory modalities.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether infants of parents with schizophrenia exhibit more EII abnormalities than infants of healthy parents.
  • To determine if infants of parents with affective psychosis show intermediate EII abnormalities.
  • To identify specific domains of EII dysfunction associated with parental schizophrenia.

Main Methods:

  • Prospective assessment of 8-month-old infants from the New England Family Study high-risk sample.
  • Groups included infants of parents with schizophrenia (n=58), affective psychoses (n=128), and healthy controls (n=174).
  • Parental diagnoses were confirmed 30 years later, blind to offspring data; EII measures assessed body, object, and social interaction domains.

Main Results:

  • Infants of parents with schizophrenia showed significantly increased body- and object-related EII abnormalities compared to controls.
  • Infants of parents with affective psychoses did not show significantly increased body- or object-related EII abnormalities.
  • EII abnormalities in social interactions were elevated in infants of both schizophrenia and affective psychosis parents.

Conclusions:

  • Body- and object-related EII abnormalities are most severe in infants of parents with schizophrenia, supporting intermodality dysfunction as an early vulnerability indicator.
  • Findings underscore the significance of intermodal integration deficits in the early developmental trajectory toward schizophrenia.
  • Further research is needed to track the evolution of this dysfunction and its association with other neurodevelopmental deficits in at-risk youth.

Keywords:
developmental psychologyhigh-risk studyschizophrenia

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