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Biomedical subjects

L Erlenmeyer-Kimling

Publications and source records attributed to L Erlenmeyer-Kimling.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

Positive and negative schizophrenic symptoms, attention, and information processing.

This study was concerned with the relationship between attentional and information-processing deficits and positive vs. negative symptoms in schizophrenia. Sixteen schizophrenic patients, rated for extent of positive and negative symptomatology, 17 depressed patients, and 31 normal control subjects were tested on a measure of distractibility and ability to process under information overload. To establish the validity of our measures, schizophrenic patients were compared with depressed patients and with normal control subjects. Lowered processing capacity appeared to be specific to schizophrenia, although the specificity of differential distractibility was less clear. For schizophrenic patients, positive symptoms were related to distractibility, whereas negative symptoms were associated with lowered processing capacity. These findings were interpreted as supporting Crow's (1981) hypothesis that the two clinical syndromes reflect independent pathological processes.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Biobehavioral risk factors in children of schizophrenic parents.

Research on risk factors for schizophrenia is reviewed with emphasis on children of schizophrenic parents. As children of schizophrenic parents are not representative of the majority of individuals who become schizophrenic, examination of variables such as those relating to home environment or parental characteristics in these children is not expected to contribute greatly to an understanding of risk for schizophrenia or to the search for early indicators of a genetic liability, whereas study of selected biobehavioral variables may do so. Four areas of biobehavioral functioning that have been examined in high-risk research are discussed. Three of these are considered to be compatible with the hypothesis of a neurointegrative defect underlying schizophrenia-proneness and to be promising for further research.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Cognitive brain potentials in children at risk for schizophrenia: preliminary findings.

Event-related brain potentials were recorded to auditory stimuli from children at risk for schizophrenia and normal control children who were part of two independent samples being followed longitudinally. Subjects were required to detect (with a reaction time response) one of two infrequent events (either a pitch change or a missing stimulus), each of which occurred 17 percent of the time, and was embedded in a sequence of frequent events occurring 66 percent of the time. The event-related potential (ERP) elicited by both infrequent stimuli consisted of a positive-going wave peaking at 350 msec for the pitch change ERP (P350) and 400 msec for the missing stimulus ERP (P400) and a slow wave, which overlapped with and extended beyond the P350 and P400 potentials. When the eliciting event was relevant, these potentials were significantly larger than when it was irrelevant. When the waveforms by the highrisk (HR) subjects were compared to those produced by the normal control (NC) subjects, the HR subjects of both samples showed significantly less late positive amplitude (P350 and P400) than the NC subjects, but only when the eliciting event was relevant. This effect appeared to be independent of reaction time, as reaction time means and variances were quite similar between risk groups. Other possible explanations for this amplitude reduction were explored. Since late positive component amplitude reduction has been consistently reported to characterize the waveforms of adult schizophrenics, the reduction seen in children at genetic risk for schizophrenia may be a premorbid indicator for the development of the psychosis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

Auditory recognition memory in adolescents at risk for schizophrenia: report on a verbal continuous recognition task.

As part of the New York High-Risk Project and in the context of a third round of testing, auditory short-term recognition memory for words and for consonant-vowel-consonant trigrams was measured in normal control adolescents (n = 53) and in adolescents at high risk for schizophrenia (n = 46). Differences in performance between the two groups are attributable to a lower initial memory strength on the part of the high-risk subjects, with trigrams showing larger differences than words. A subgroup of the high-risk subjects characterized by "clinical deviancy" showed, in addition, a (nonsignificant) increase in the rate of information loss from memory for trigrams.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Stimulus and response related components of the late positive complex in visual discrimination tasks.

Visual event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded from 6 subjects aged 10--15 in response to target stimuli in 2 vigilance tasks which differed in their processing requirements. Stimulus- and response-synchronized averages were computed for each subject for each quartile (Q) of that subject's reaction time (RT) distribution. Late positive complexes (LPC) of identical morphology were seen in the brain potentials from each task. In Q1, the LPC was an undifferentiated, large amplitude, positive-going potential with a parietal-maximum topography. As RT increased, the LPC became increasingly differentiated so that by Q3 3 components in the latency range of P300 were visible: two constant-latency peaks, P286 (fronto-central), P341 (parietal); and one variable-latency deflection, P539 (parietal), whose peak latency lengthened as RT increased. An additional constant-latency peak, P198, was also recorded. Principal component analyses of the averaged wave forms confirmed the visual identification of these components. The fixed-latency peaks identified in the brain potentials of these subjects were similar in timing and topography to previously reported late positive components. This study demonstrated. however, that the LPC can be segregated into stimulus-related and response-related components.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Discussion of genetics and mental health.

The preceding articles by Kety, Gershon et al., and Omenn are discussed. Ongoing research on children of one or two schizophrenic parents is described as representing the opportunity to study precipitating environmental factors.

Adaptation, Psychological↗