Biomedical subjects

H Schulsinger

Publications and source records attributed to H Schulsinger.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

School teacher ratings predictive of psychiatric outcome 25 years later.

BACKGROUND: The current study examines teacher ratings as a tool for identifying students at risk of developing psychosis. Follow-up and follow-back studies have shown that teachers are capable of identifying individuals who later develop serious mental illness. METHOD: We examine the long-term outcomes for individuals at genetic risk who were identified as showing markedly deviant behaviour and those identified who did not show markedly deviant behaviour. RESULTS: Teachers were able to correctly anticipate 35% of students who developed schizophrenia. Furthermore, those identified as showing markedly deviant behaviour had poorer clinical and psychiatric outcomes 10 and 25 years later than those identified as not behaving with marked deviance. Their ratings also differentiated, within the group of people with schizophrenia, which individuals would show evidence of poorer functioning 25 years later. These results were replicated in a group of students not at genetic risk of schizophrenia. Within this low-risk group, teachers were able to predict which students would develop psychotic disorders. CONCLUSIONS: Teacher ratings were particularly useful in predicting clinical and psychiatric outcomes 10 and 25 years later. The applicability of these findings in early intervention and treatment research is discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1995

The latent structure of schizotypy: I. Premorbid indicators of a taxon of individuals at risk for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.

A taxometric analysis (R. R. Golden & P. E. Meehl, 1979) was conducted to test the hypotheses that liability for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders is dichotomously distributed and that this liability can be detected premorbidly with behavioral indicators analogous to many of the criteria for schizotypal personality disorder. Behaviors were assessed in 207 offspring of schizophrenic mothers and 104 matched offspring of normal parents in 1962, when participants' mean age was 15 years. Diagnoses on the basis of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev.; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) were made in 1986-1989, when participants were nearly through the risk period for developing schizophrenia. The aggregation of indicators was consistent with a bimodal latent liability distribution. Membership in the schizotypal class was a sensitive and specific predictor of the emergence of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in adulthood.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1993

Lifetime DSM-III-R diagnostic outcomes in the offspring of schizophrenic mothers. Results from the Copenhagen High-Risk Study.

OBJECTIVES: To perform a long-term prospective follow-up of children at high risk for schizophrenia to identify risk factors for the development of this disorder. DESIGN: Prospective follow-up population study of children of schizophrenic mothers and their matched controls from age 15 years to age 42 years, with multiple diagnostic assessments performed by senior clinicians using structured interviews blindly with respect to the group membership of the subject. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred seven offspring of schizophrenic mothers and 104 control children without schizophrenic parents matched to the index group on age, sex, paternal socioeconomic status, urban/rural residence, and the amount of time spent during childhood in institutional rearing. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The prevalence of the DSM-III-R disorders during the subjects lifetime. RESULTS: A significant aggregation of schizophrenia (16.2%) and other nonaffective, nonorganic psychosis (4.6%), and Cluster A personality disorders (21.3%) occurred among the offspring of schizophrenic mothers compared with the controls (1.9%, 0.9%, and 5%, respectively). No evidence of increased aggregation of (psychotic and nonpsychotic) affective disorders was noted among the offspring of schizophrenics. CONCLUSION: These results coincide with the results of other family studies in demonstrating a significant and specific familial aggregation of schizophrenia and nonpsychotic schizophrenia spectrum disorders among the biological relatives of schizophrenics.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1991

A preliminary report on the neuropsychologic sequelae of human immunodeficiency virus.

The neuropsychologic sequelae of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and human immunodeficiency virus were studied by comparing the results of a neuropsychologic test battery administered to the following three groups of Danish homosexual men: 20 patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, 20 asymptomatic subjects who tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus, and a matched control group of 20 subjects who tested negative for the human immunodeficiency virus. The group with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome performed significantly worse than the control subjects on the tests measuring concentration, memory, and psychomotor speed. The group with human immunodeficiency virus performed significantly worse than the control subjects on the tests measuring verbal memory and psychomotor speed. On the other tests, their results varied. The study supports the hypothesis that not only patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome but also asymptomatic subjects with human immunodeficiency virus may be neuropsychologically impaired early in the course of the disease.

AIDS Dementia Complex↗

PubMed1987

Heredity-environment interaction and schizophrenia.

The longitudinal prospective study of populations at risk is considered a powerful strategy towards disentangling hereditary and environmental factors. Data from Mednick and Schulsinger's 1962 study in Copenhagen, on children at high-risk for schizophrenia are used as an illustration. Pregnancy and birth complications, as well as institutional rearing in early childhood contributes towards schizophrenia in the risk children, but not in the low-risk controls. Risk children with an outcome of schizotypal personality disorder were hardly exposed to perinatal complications. To some extent, schizophrenia may be considered as a complicated form of schizotypal personality disorder, which again may be a genetically transmitted condition.

Adoption↗

PubMed1987

The Copenhagen high-risk project. The diagnosis of maternal schizophrenia and its relation to offspring diagnosis.

The Copenhagen longitudinal high-risk study of offspring of 129 schizophrenic mothers commenced in 1962. At that time, the mothers were diagnosed according to contemporary Danish criteria. We have re-examined all of the hospital records of these mothers: 108 (84%) fulfil present-day DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia and 95 (74%) were diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic according to ICD-8 criteria. In a follow-up at mean age 24, the offspring of the paranoid schizophrenic mothers were themselves found to be less frequently schizophrenic (5%) than were the offspring of non-paranoid schizophrenic mothers (29%).

Adult↗

PubMed1986

Continuity of formal thought disorder from childhood to adulthood in a high-risk sample.

Within a longitudinal prospective study of children of schizophrenic mothers, premorbid, childhood levels of formal thought disorder correlated positively with measures of formal thought disorder obtained in adulthood. It is therefore concluded that schizophrenic symptomatology develops by gradual accretion and that schizophrenia is not a sudden, unexpected disease. Orthogonal factor analysis of formal thought disorder measures obtained in adulthood revealed two factors: one reflecting vague and drifting thinking, and the second relating to the richness of speech.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1985

Institutional rearing and diagnostic outcome in children of schizophrenic mothers. A prospective high-risk study.

Within a prospective, longitudinal study of offspring of schizophrenic mothers (so-called high-risk children), diagnostic outcome (schizophrenia, "schizotypal" personality disorder, other diagnoses, and no mental illness) was predicted by the mother's age at first hospitalization and by institutionalization during the first five years of life. Institutionalization was unrelated to adult psychopathology in a low-risk control group. These results are interpreted as supporting a diathesis-stress model of schizophrenic origin.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1984

Cerebral ventricular size in the offspring of schizophrenic mothers. A preliminary study.

Within a prospective, longitudinal study of offspring of schizophrenic mothers, computed tomographic scan-derived measurements of ventricular size were evaluated for a subsample consisting of schizophrenics, borderline schizophrenics (DSM-III schizotypal), and mentally healthy individuals. Schizophrenics exhibited larger ventricular sizes and borderline schizophrenics smaller ventricular sizes than mentally healthy individuals. Ventricular size correlated with premorbidly obtained obstetric data. These results are interpreted as being consistent with the hypothesis that neurological insult may decompensate schizotypal individuals toward florid schizophrenia.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1982

Behavioral precursors of schizophrenia spectrum. A prospective study.

In a prospective longitudinal study of children of severely schizophrenic mothers, premorbid behavioral data on individuals diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorder were compared with the same data on individuals diagnosed as not suffering from any mental disorder. Future schizophrenia spectrum individuals were passive babies who exhibited short attention spans. In school, they experienced interpersonal difficulties and displayed disturbing behavior, reflecting poor affective control. From clinical assessments at a mean of 15 years of age, formal cognitive disturbance and defective emotional rapport emerged as premorbid characteristics of schizophrenia spectrum disorder. These results seem to indicate that signs of defective emotional contact and formal thought disorder are important for the psychopathology of schizophrenia. Furthermore, the premorbid similarity of borderline schizophrenia and schizophrenia suggests a basic relationship between these two disorders.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1982

Continuity of character neurosis from childhood to adulthood. A prospective longitudinal study.

In a prospective longitudinal study, stability of personality traits was examined between the age of 15 and the age of 25. Scales, derived from an Adjective Check List, intending to predict obsessive-compulsive character neurosis, anti-aggressive character neurosis and non-neurotic personality have been utilized. Temporal stability of the examined personality traits was demonstrated.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1982

Perinatal complications and clinical outcome within the schizophrenia spectrum.

In a prospective study of offspring of schizophrenic mothers, perinatal complications reported in midwife protocols were analysed for those offspring who, as adults, were diagnosed as schizophrenic, borderline schizophrenic or as not suffering from mental illness. The schizophrenics were found to have had the most complicated births, and the borderlines, the least complicated births. This difference is interpreted in terms of a 'diathesis-stress' model. It is proposed that birth complications can decompensate borderline individuals towards schizophrenic breakdown.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1976

A ten-year follow-up of children of schizophrenic mothers. Clinical assessment.

A Group of 207 subjects with severely schizophrenic mothers and a matched group 104 subjects without known mental illness in the parents or grandparents have been followed since 1962 in a prospective study based on Mednick's learning theory of schizophrenia. The present paper describes an analysis of the clinical outcome based on a follow-up examination in 1972-1974. The examination consisted of a 3 1/2-hour clinical interview using three approaches (two with computer-derived diagnoses and one traditional clinical interview). 173 high-risk and 91 low-risk subjects were fully clinically reassessed. At the time of the assessment they were between 18 and 30 years old. The diagnostic distribution showed marked differences between the two groups with regard to type and degree of psychpathology. The results are discussed in relation to the methods used, and with regard to the case and non-case status of the subjects.

Adolescent↗