Psychobiological heterogeneity of familial and sporadic schizophrenia

Although schizophrenia is presumed to be heterogeneous, there has been limited success distinguishing familial from sporadic cases. We used psychobiological measures to examine heterogeneity, as they may be closer to neurobiology than symptoms. Smooth pursuit eye movement quality (SPEM) and dichotic listening (DL) tests to tones and words were used to assess hemispheric laterality asymmetry.

Forty-six research unit patients participated in assessments of family history (FH) and physiological measures. FH was categorized by three exclusive groups: FH-1 patients had a chronic schizophrenia-related psychosis in a first-degree relative, FH-2 had it in second-degree relative, and FH-3 had no family member with a reoccurrence.

Analysis of variance showed a significant group difference for SPEM and DL tones. SPEM was significantly worse in all three schizophrenia groups than for the normal comparison subjects. Among the schizophrenia groups, the nonfamilial group (FH-3) had the worst SPEM quality, FH-2 had intermediate quality, and FH-1 had the best quality. Conversely, only the nonfamilials (FH-3) had normal right hemispheric lateralization for tones, whereas familials did not, and FH-2 again had intermediate values. The lateralization quotient for DL words did not significantly differ among the groups.

SPEM was affected most in sporadic, not familial schizophrenia, whereas dichotic listening was most affected in familial schizophrenia. This double dissociation supports the utility of the familial/sporadic distinction and suggests that etiological factors in different forms of schizophrenia may impact principally on distinct neurobiological substrates, despite similar patient phenomenology.