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L Erlenmeyer-Kimling

Publications and source records attributed to L Erlenmeyer-Kimling.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

A summary of attentional findings in the New York High-Risk Project.

We summarize here our findings with respect to attentional impairment among offspring of schizophrenic, affectively ill, and normal parents followed from childhood to adulthood during the two decades of the New York High-Risk Project (NYHRP). We review our data first, on childhood attentional performance in each of our two independent samples of such subjects and, second, on the relationship of early dysfunctions observed in this domain to psychopathological outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. Our cumulative results contribute strong support to the contention that global attentional dysfunctions may be viewed as a biobehavioral marker for the genetic liability to schizophrenic disorders.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Early life precursors of psychiatric outcomes in adulthood in subjects at risk for schizophrenia or affective disorders.

In the New York High-Risk Project (NYHRP), 186 offspring of schizophrenic, affectively ill, and psychiatrically normal parents have been followed prospectively from 1971-72 to the average age of 27 years in 1990 with the goal of identifying early precursors of later psychopathology. In this report, we use path analyses to examine the relationship of several life-history variables to three pathological outcomes in the offspring: namely, psychosis, psychiatric hospitalization, and psychological dysfunction. The chief direct relationship with these outcomes is the effect of having a schizophrenic parent. The latter effect is also mediated indirectly by IQ.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

The assessment of schizotypal features over two points in time.

The expression of schizotypal personality traits was assessed in mid-adolescence and again in young adulthood for three groups of offspring defined by the psychiatric diagnosis of their parents. Parental diagnoses included schizophrenic disorder (47 offspring), affective disorder (39 offspring), and 'no psychiatric disorder', or normal controls (82 offspring). Initially, schizotypal traits were assessed from video-taped semi-structured psychiatric interviews, subsequently rated by trained psychiatrists blind to the parental psychiatric status of the subjects, and/or direct clinical interviews (Schedule for Affective Disorders-Lifetime Version (SADS-L)). The second assessment was conducted by trained social workers and psychologists by means of a semi-structured interview specifically for DSM-III-R personality disorders (Personality Disorder Examination) and sections of the SDS-L where indicated. These interviewers were blind to the parental status and to previous psychiatric assessments of the offspring. The rates of stability of features or the rates of progression to axis I psychotic disorders (Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, and Unspecified Functional Psychosis) were evaluated. Concordance of assessments over time is reported as a function of threshold for expression of traits at initial evaluation, i.e., two or more, three or more, or four or more features present. Concordance increases as the threshold for expression increases, as expected. The effect of comorbid clinical status, e.g., the coexistence of schizotypal traits and anxiety and/or depressive features on the concordance pattern, is also examined by parental diagnostic group status. The offspring of affective disorder parents exhibited higher rates of anxiety and/or depressive features at both points in time, exhibited higher concordance for anxiety and/or depressive features, and exhibited higher rates of 'transformation' of initial schizotypal features to anxiety and/or depressive features at the second assessment.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Replicated psychometric correlates of schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: The authors' goals are to use scales from the MMPI hypothesized in their previous research to be correlates of liability to schizophrenia to differentiate DSM-III schizophrenia from bipolar and unipolar affective illness and to cross-validate these correlates in an independently ascertained sample of patients with Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC) schizophrenia or affective disorder. METHOD: The criterion sample consisted of 83 patients consecutively admitted to a state-operated community mental health center. Diagnosis of schizophrenia; bipolar disorder, manic; and major depression were assigned by using DSM-III. The replication sample consisted of 60 adults with RDC diagnoses of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and unipolar disorder who were parents of children in two samples collected for a study of offspring at high risk for schizophrenia and other psychopathology. After the patients in the criterion sample were classified by logistic regression analysis, the results were used to classify patients in the replication sample. RESULTS: The MMPI indicators had adequate sensitivity, specificity, and predictive power for classifying schizophrenia, and there was a moderately high rate of diagnostic agreement between the MMPI and DSM-III. Cross-validation in the replication sample was successful. Overall, the MMPI index was an adequate inclusion and exclusion criterion not only for DSM-III-defined but also for RDC-defined schizophrenia. CONCLUSIONS: A psychometric index composed of the paranoid schizophrenia, psychoticism, and manifest hostility scales from the MMPI would be a cost-effective measure to increase diagnostic efficacy in future schizophrenia research and clinical practice.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Social competence and positive and negative symptoms: a longitudinal study of children and adolescents at risk for schizophrenia and affective disorder.

OBJECTIVE: The authors longitudinally examined social competence and positive and negative symptoms in children at risk for schizophrenia, children at risk for affective disorder, and matched normal subjects. METHOD: The subjects were offspring of parents with schizophrenia or affective disorder and normal comparison subjects matched on age, sex, and socioeconomic status. Ratings of social competence (Premorbid Adjustment Scale), affective flattening and poverty of speech (Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms), and positive formal thought disorder (Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms) were based on videotaped psychiatric interviews conducted in childhood (N = 144), early adolescence (N = 127), and adolescence (N = 106). RESULTS: In childhood, there were no significant group differences. In early adolescence, the subjects at risk for schizophrenia had poorer social competence than those at risk for affective disorder and the normal subjects. In early adolescence, the subjects at risk for schizophrenia also had greater positive thought disorder than those at risk for affective disorder but did not differ significantly from the normal subjects; there were no differences in negative symptoms. In adolescence, the subjects at risk for schizophrenia had poorer social competence and greater positive and negative symptoms than the adolescents at risk for affective disorder and the normal subjects. CONCLUSIONS: During early adolescence and adolescence, poor social competence may be more characteristic of children at risk for schizophrenia than those at risk for affective disorder. Higher levels of positive and negative symptoms may also be specific to subjects at risk for schizophrenia, but only during adolescence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Transmission of a psychometric indicator for liability to schizophrenia in normal families.

The genetic analysis of schizophrenia would be facilitated by identification of a heritable correlate of liability. Deviance on an index of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) signs is associated with the disease phenotype; the familial aggregation and mode of transmission of this continuous psychometric indicator have yet to be established. In this paper, we examine the indicator through commingling analysis and segregation analysis with both the mixed and unified models on 65 nuclear families containing 211 normal individuals. Evidence for a high degree of familiality is found. Analysis of untransformed data under a conditional likelihood provides evidence for Mendelian transmission of a major gene with commingling of two distributions. The frequency of the "high index score" allele is 0.15, with the gene accounting for 31% of the total population variance; such a locus would be relevant to the study of psychopathology as 28% of the population would carry at least one deviant allele. When power-transformed scores are used to eliminate skewness, there is evidence for one distribution and it is not possible to distinguish single gene from multifactorial (polygenic or cultural) inheritance. While our findings regarding mode of transmission must be interpreted cautiously and confirmation of a single locus requires further study, demonstration of familiality warrants continued investigation of the index as an indicator of liability for schizophrenia.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Estimation of disease risk under bivariate models of multifactorial inheritance.

Adjunct consideration of both qualitative (affection status) and quantitative (correlated liability indicator) information to define a bivariate phenotype can increase considerably the accuracy and efficiency of disease risk estimation. A general approach for calculating morbid risks to offspring on the basis of parental affection status and an offspring quantitative trait is presented. We also describe two different bivariate models of multifactorial inheritance, as implemented in the computer programs POINTER and YPOINT, and make explicit their assumptions/constraints when estimating the within-person and parent-offspring correlations necessary for calculation of morbid risks. We use psychometric family data on schizophrenia from the New York High-Risk Project to estimate these correlations and illustrate our methods. Our results show that even when a trait is only moderately correlated with liability, incorporation of quantitative trait information can lead to resolution of a range of risk to offspring that is not possible through reliance on parental affection status alone. Bivariate models provide a useful methodology for incorporating quantitative indicators of liability in the investigation of genetically complex diseases.

Mathematics↗
PubMed1990

Psychometric deviance in offspring at risk for schizophrenia: I. Initial delineation of a distinct subgroup.

Psychometric signs from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which measure substantive disturbances in thinking, social relatedness, volition, and affective expressivity, were evaluated as possible indicators of transmissible liability specific to schizophrenia. Children of three criterion groups in the New York High-Risk Project--offspring at high risk (HR) for schizophrenia, psychiatric comparison (PC) offspring at risk for affective disorders, and normal comparison (NC) offspring not at augmented risk for psychiatric morbidity--were tested before the expression of schizophrenic psychopathology, when the subjects ranged in age from 13 to 26 years. The rate of psychometric deviance in the HR group (23%) was significantly higher than that in either the PC (7%) or NC (2%) groups, and profile analyses showed that the HR subgroup could be delineated by qualitative distinctions in personality functioning. Our results support the utility of MMPI indicators in etiologic investigations of schizophrenia.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Psychometric deviance in offspring at risk for schizophrenia: II. Resolving heterogeneity through admixture analysis.

The longitudinal and prospective study of offspring at risk for schizophrenia is complicated by within-group heterogeneity in liability, as only a subgroup of those at risk will ultimately become affected. Here, we attempt to resolve such heterogeneity in the New York High-Risk Project by conducting an admixture analysis of values on a psychometric index of liability to schizophrenia derived from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). We fit mixtures of components to the overall distribution in 171 children from three criterion groups: offspring at risk (HR) for schizophrenia, psychiatric comparison (PC) offspring at risk for affective illness, and normal comparison (NC) offspring not at increased risk for psychiatric morbidity. The distribution of psychometric scores was bimodal, and separation of two latent classes showed that there is a valid and nonarbitrary distinction between a subgroup of MMPI-deviant (primarily HR) offspring and a larger homogeneous group of MMPI-nondeviant HR, PC, and NC subjects. While continued followup is required to demonstrate a correspondence between these two classes and an underlying taxonomy of liability to schizophrenia, our findings demonstrate the utility of objective psychometric measurement and admixture analysis for resolving within-group heterogeneity in high-risk research. The wider implications of including our MMPI indicators in other genetic investigations of schizophrenia are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Report of a workshop on genetic linkage studies in schizophrenia.

A workshop on genetic linkage studies in schizophrenia was held at Columbia University's Arden House Conference Center in October 1989. This report summarizes the contents of invited talks by Drs. Arno Motulsky and T. Conrad Gilliam and the discussions at the five workshop sessions. Topics of the workshop sessions were (1) diagnostic boundaries and hierarchies in schizophrenia, (2) genetic models and linkage parameters, (3) selection and ascertainment of pedigrees, (4) future extensions of molecular genetics strategies, and (5) possibilities for future collaboration.

Genetic Linkage↗
PubMed1989

DSM-III-R schizotypal personality traits in offspring of schizophrenic disorder, affective disorder, and normal control parents.

The aggregation of disorder in families identified by a schizophrenic disorder proband (index case) has provided indirect clues to the question of diagnostic boundaries of schizophrenic spectrum categories. The Danish Adoption Studies provided quasi-experimental evidence for the range of expression of a putative schizophrenic spectrum disorder which was subsequently denoted schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) in DSM-III-R. It has been hypothesized that such schizophrenic spectrum categories bear a genetic relationship to schizophrenic disorder and thus are continuous with schizophrenia in terms of etiology and pathogenesis. For meaningful use of such spectrum categories in genetic analyses, i.e., linkage analysis, it is important that rates of spectrum traits and disorder in normal control and in psychiatric control populations are known. The rate of DSM-III-R schizotypal traits and disorder was assessed in three offspring groups (ages 18-29) defined by parental diagnoses, including schizophrenic disorder (N = 90), affective disorder (N = 79), and no parental disorder (N = 161). The assessment was conducted by trained social workers and psychologists by means of a direct interview (Personality Disorder Examination). The interviewers were blind to the parental status and to previous psychiatric assessments of these offspring. The rates of three, four and five schizotypal features were elevated in the offspring with parental psychiatric disorder in contrast to the offspring with no parental psychiatric disorder. However, the rates between the offspring of the schizophrenic disorder parental group and the offspring of the affective disorder parental group did not differ significantly, thus failing to support the assumption of diagnostic specificity.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

The continuous performance test, identical pairs version: II. Contrasting attentional profiles in schizophrenic and depressed patients.

The Continuous Performance Test-Identical Pairs version was administered to 14 schizophrenic patients, 17 depressed patients, and 28 normal controls. The task was divided into verbal and spatial stimuli, as well as no-distraction and distraction (verbal and auditory) conditions. Both patient groups displayed attentional impairments compared to normal subjects, but they differed from each other in specific profiles. Schizophrenic patients were characterized by a global impairment and a particular inability to focus on the critical stimuli, whether verbal or spatial. They also made an excess of random responses throughout the task but showed no evidence that attention declined from its initial level over time. Depressed patients did not display a global attentional deficit but did show a specific inability to attend to spatial as compared to verbal stimuli and, in particular, a confusion when the spatial stimuli were only slightly different. Performance on a secondary task in response to a change in expectation improved dramatically for depressed but not schizophrenic patients, suggesting a more efficient allocation strategy, a greater reserve of processing capacity, or more dependence on motivational factors in depressed patients. Schizophrenic and depressed patients were alike in extent of distractibility. Whereas normal controls improved with the onset of external distraction, schizophrenic and depressed patients deteriorated to an equal extent. Distractibility was thus concluded to be a correlate of acute psychiatric illness and not specific for schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

A taxometric analysis of cognitive and neuromotor variables in children at risk for schizophrenia.

A taxometric model was applied to detect a subgroup or taxon of children conjectured to be at highest risk for developing schizophrenia or related disorders in a sample of offspring of schizophrenic, depressed, and normal parents. Measures of cognitive and neuromotor performance in childhood were used as indicator tests in the analyses. A taxon consisting chiefly of children of schizophrenic parents was detected. Forty-seven percent of those children were assigned to the taxon, compared with 16% of the children of depressed parents and 4% of the children of normal parents. Assignment to the taxon is assessed in relation to the current functional status of the subjects in young adulthood.

Child↗
PubMed1988

Auditory event-related potentials in children at risk for schizophrenia: the complete initial sample.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from children of schizophrenic parents, children of parents with affective disorders, and children of parents without a history of psychiatric illness. ERPs were elicited during a modification of the "oddball" paradigm, in which two infrequents (a change in pitch and a missing stimulus) were embedded in a series of frequent background events. The data were recorded from electrodes located at midline frontal, central, parietal, and occipital scalp sites. Diagnostic assessments of the parents were performed using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Lifetime Version (SADS-L) and Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC). Behavioral assessments of the children were made with a modified version (BGAS) of the Global Assessment Scale. ERP amplitudes for several electrophysiological events were compared among groups for target and nontarget stimuli using analyses of of variance of both factor score and baseline to peak measures. No systematic differences suggesting waveform abnormalities in the children of schizophrenic parents (high-risk subjects) were found. However, when the results were analyzed using only those children whose parents had a "pure" diagnosis of either schizophrenia or affective disorder, the children of affectively disordered parents (psychiatric control subjects) showed significantly lower N100 amplitudes (to the frequent event only) than either the normal control or high-risk subjects. No consistent behavioral differences among the three groups emerged. Since only a small percentage of children at risk will eventually develop schizophrenia, ERP amplitude frequency distribution analyses were also performed and compared among groups. However, these did not provide evidence of an outlying subgroup in any of the three groups. There were complex relationships between ERP component amplitudes and behavioral adjustment in adolescence but, in general, these did not distinguish high-risk and psychiatric control subjects from each other. There was no evidence of a relationship between deviant attentional functioning as measured in an earlier round of laboratory testing and ERP late component amplitude.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

The Continuous Performance Test, identical pairs version (CPT-IP): I. New findings about sustained attention in normal families.

Thirty families, consisting of two parents and two adolescent children, were tested on a high-processing load Continuous Performance Test, the CPT-IP, which required identification of identical stimulus pairs within a continuously presented series of stimuli. The purpose of this study was to provide normative data for research concerned with the role of attention in psychopathology, especially schizophrenia and major affective disorder. Retest data collected from 23 of the 30 families showed the CPT-IP to be a reliable measure of attention. A major developmental effect was found in capacity to sustain attention to spatial vs. verbal stimuli, which suggested that spatial skills are most developed during childhood and adolescence, while verbal attentional skills tend to peak in adulthood. Factor analysis and family transmission patterns further suggested that the two types of attention (spatial and verbal) were independent and that each was heritable to some degree. Experimental distraction did not disrupt performance in any of the subjects and, in fact, tended to improve it in the adolescents, especially for spatial stimuli. We conclude that the CPT-IP is appropriate for use with families containing members differing widely in age and processing skills.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

The specificity of DSM-III schizotypal personality traits.

The rate of DSM-III schizotypal personality traits was evaluated in three groups of adolescent offspring (ages 15-21), defined by the psychiatric diagnosis of their parents. Parental diagnoses included schizophrenic disorder (40 adolescents), affective disorder (35 adolescents), and 'no psychiatric disorder' (normal controls) parents (82 adolescents). The presence of the eight component features of schizotypal personality disorder was assessed from video-taped semistructured psychiatric interviews, subsequently rated by trained psychiatrists, blind to the parental psychiatric status of the subjects. The effect of age, sex, and social class on the pattern of prevalence results was examined. The expected specificity of DSM-III schizotypal personality traits to schizophrenia was not supported by the prevalence pattern of the traits. Rates of 2 or more, 3 or more, and 4 or more schizotypal personality features were highest in the parental psychiatric groups. The rates of schizotypal personality traits in adolescent offspring of affective disorder parents were as high as those previously reported for relatives of schizophrenic disorder probands.

Adolescent↗