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B A Cornblatt

Publications and source records attributed to B A Cornblatt.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
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↗
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

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↗
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↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Refining phenotype characterization in genetic linkage studies of schizophrenia.

A definitive replicable genetic linkage for a major locus underlying the susceptibility to schizophrenia has not been identified to date. Although there are several possible explanations for the failure to find linkage in schizophrenia, one major problem is that the range of phenotypic expressions of the genes for schizophrenia has not been clarified. A more refined understanding of the various phenotypic expressions of a gene related to schizophrenia would enhance the power of studies designed to detect a genetic linkage with a major chromosomal locus and would benefit other strategies for understanding the etiology of schizophrenia. The genes for schizophrenia may be frequently expressed in relatives of schizophrenic patients, although with less severe symptoms than those of chronic schizophrenia. Two series of findings support this notion. Nonschizophrenic relatives of schizophrenic patients demonstrate an increased incidence of nonpsychotic schizophrenia-like symptoms and traits, and they manifest deficit performances on several different laboratory tests of neurocognitive functioning. A more refined phenotypic expression of a schizophrenia-related gene may thus be indicated by personality traits and subclinical neurocognitive deficits. These personality traits and neurocognitive deficits are considered here as possible aids in the identification of affected cases in genetic linkage studies of schizophrenia. Terminology for different indicators of neurocognitive deficits is introduced, and the relative utility of personality traits and indicators of neurocognitive deficit for genetic linkage studies is discussed. As specific examples, schizophrenia-related personality traits that are unrelated to affective symptoms and performance deficits on tasks of eye tracking and continuous attention are considered for strategies for broadening phenotype characterization without reducing the specificity of affected case identification.

Eye Movements↗