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Matti O Huttunen

Publications and source records attributed to Matti O Huttunen.

18 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Inherited auditory-cortical dysfunction in twin pairs discordant for schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Information on the inheritance of neurophysiological abnormalities might help elucidate the molecular genetic basis of schizophrenia. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the inheritance of auditory-cortical deficiencies in twin pairs discordant for schizophrenia. METHODS: Auditory EEG/MEG responses to frequent standard and occasional deviant tones were measured in mono- and dizygotic (MZ and DZ) twin pairs discordant for schizophrenia and demographically matched healthy twin pairs, recruited from a total population cohort. The MEG/EEG results were regressed against the genetic resemblance to patients with schizophrenia across the patients' unaffected MZ/DZ co-twins and control subjects (with genetic correlations of 1, .5, and 0 to schizophrenia patients, respectively). RESULTS: The EEG responses P50, N100, and mismatch negativity (MMN), as well as the MEG response P50m, were reduced in the schizophrenic patients. P50 and N100 were significantly decreased also in their unaffected co-twins, as compared with the control subjects. Importantly, the P50 and N100 decrease correlated with the unaffected subjects' genetic resemblance to schizophrenia patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest inherited abnormalities in cortical auditory processing in schizophrenia, reflected by the decreased P50/P50m and N100 amplitudes, whereas the MMN abnormalities might reflect predominantly state-dependent neurodegeneration.

Brain Mapping↗
PubMed2006

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Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Smoking during pregnancy: association with childhood temperament, behavior, and academic performance.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and ratings of offspring's temperament, behavior, and academic performance at various developmental periods in childhood. METHODS: Multivariate analyses of a birth cohort examined the outcomes for children on measures of temperament, behavior, and academic performance in infancy (6 months), at age 5, and at age 12. RESULTS: When controlling for maternal psychiatric hospitalization, psychological distress during pregnancy, hospitalization for accidents, socioeconomic status, age, and symptoms of upper respiratory infection and nausea, a range of associations between maternal smoking and child outcomes were observed at different ages studied. CONCLUSION: Despite widespread warning regarding smoking cessation during pregnancy, the literature base on the longer-term effects beyond the neonatal and infant period is less available. This is one of the first studies to investigate the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and child outcomes at several stages of development. The results provide evidence for the lasting effects of smoking during pregnancy on the development of the child.

Achievement↗
PubMed2005

Gestational exposure to cigarette smoke imperils the long-term physical and mental health of offspring.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we sought to understand whether prenatal exposure to cigarette smoke would be associated with increased offspring hospitalization through age 22 years for various physical and mental health diagnoses. METHODS: We used multivariate logistic regression to investigate the relationship between gestational exposure to cigarette smoke and offspring hospitalization for physical and mental health conditions based on International Classification of Diseases (ICD; World Health Organization) diagnoses. RESULTS: When controlling for parental psychiatric status, maternal somatic health, socioeconomic status, parity, and maternal age, youth born to mothers who smoked six or more cigarettes per day were more likely to have experienced hospitalization for neuroses (OR, 1.97), diseases of the nervous system (i.e., neurological disorders) (OR, 1.47), respiratory infections (OR, 1.28), accidents (OR, 1.44), infections (OR, 1.54), undiagnosed symptoms (OR, 1.65), and total admissions (OR, 1.48). Female offspring prenatally exposed were more likely to have experienced hospitalization for obstetric complications (OR, 2.94). No association was found for the remaining categories analyzed: blood disorders, skin diseases, psychoses, metabolic/endocrine disease, circulatory disease, digestive disease, disease of the skeletal/muscular system, physical anomalies, neoplasms, and genital/urinary disease. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to investigate the impact of gestational exposure to cigarette smoke on global measures of somatic and physical health in offspring. This study adds to the literature by demonstrating that smoking during pregnancy increases offspring risk for additional health outcomes not previously recognized in the literature, and that the effect of smoking during pregnancy persists throughout the developmental period. The possibility that these findings are related to lifestyle markers or smoke exposure during childhood should also be considered.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Do schizotypal symptoms mediate the relationship between genetic risk for schizophrenia and impaired neuropsychological performance in co-twins of schizophrenic patients?

BACKGROUND: Neurocognitive deficits and symptoms of schizotypal personality disorder are both elevated in the first-degree relatives of schizophrenic patients, but their relationship to each other and their potential common genetic source remain unclear. METHODS: Fifty unaffected co-twins of schizophrenic patients and 123 control twins were assessed with a neuropsychological battery and structured clinical interviews. RESULTS: Working memory was influenced by genetic risk for schizophrenia but not schizotypal symptoms. Nearly all other domains were influenced by schizotypy symptoms but only in the co-twins of schizophrenic patients. Schizotypy symptoms in the absence of a family history did not seem to be related to impaired neurocognitive functioning. CONCLUSIONS: Schizotypy symptoms in those with genetic risk for schizophrenia are associated with increased risk for cognitive deficits. Some neurocognitive deficits might covary with subpsychotic symptoms due to a shared genetic factor. Community-ascertained schizotypal individuals might not be appropriate for modeling underlying genetic risk for schizophrenia.

Female↗
PubMed2003

Risperidone reduces limited access alcohol drinking in alcohol-preferring rats.

An atypical antipsychotic drug risperidone reduced ethanol drinking of ethanol-preferring Alko, Alcohol (AA) rats in a limited access paradigm. Its effect was transient at a dose known to preferentially antagonize the 5-HT(2) receptors (0.1 mg/kg, s.c.), but long-lasting when the dose was increased to 1.0 mg/kg that also blocks dopamine D(2) receptors. Risperidone also reduced dose-dependently locomotor activity and limited access saccharin intake of the AA rats, indicating that its effect on ethanol drinking was not selective. Risperidone at 0.1 mg/kg given before four successive daily ethanol-drinking sessions significantly reduced the ethanol intake. These data from an animal model of high ethanol intake suggest that risperidone should be tested in various populations of alcoholics for reducing ethanol consumption.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMed2003

Association between maternal fever and psychological/behavior outcomes: a hypothesis.

BACKGROUND: This study is one of the first to investigate the association between maternal report of fever during middle to late pregnancy and psychological, behavioral, and educational outcomes in offspring. The hypothesis guiding this research was that maternal fever during the second trimester of pregnancy has an adverse effect on the development of the central nervous system (CNS) of the fetus, resulting in abnormalities of psychological development and behavior that can be observed in childhood. METHODS: Multivariate analyses of a birth cohort compared outcomes for children whose mothers never reported fever during pregnancy and those who reported fever in the second and third trimesters. Children were compared on measures of temperament, behavior, and academic performance in infancy and at five and 12 years of age. RESULTS: Associations were obtained for second-trimester fever and distress to novelty (p < 0.05) in infancy. Significant associations were also obtained for inhibition (p < 0.01), negative emotionality (p < 0.05), and lack of task persistence (p < 0.01) at age five. Furthermore, school achievement (p < 0.05) and task orientation (p < 0.01) at age 12 were associated with maternal reports of second-trimester fever exposure. CONCLUSIONS: Much of the gestation/hyperthermia research has focused on the relationship between hyperthermia exposure and profoundly teratogenic outcomes. In this study we investigated subtler psychological/behavioral associations that may not be observable until later in development. Although the current study was hampered by technical limitations, the results support the need for more rigorously controlled research into a possible association between gestational fever and psychological/behavioral outcomes.

Behavior↗
PubMed2003

Early and late neurodevelopmental influences in the prodrome to schizophrenia: contributions of genes, environment, and their interactions.

Both early (i.e., pre- and perinatal periods) and late (i.e., adolescent period) neurodevelopmental processes are thought to participate in the etiology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia. However, whether markers of these processes would be expected to predict an imminent onset of psychosis, as is hoped in the current generation of prodromal research programs, depends on whether their disruptions result from genetic factors shared by patients and some of their unaffected relatives, nongenetic factors specific to those who manifest the illness phenotype, or combinations of these sets of influences. Here we present recent work deriving primarily from high-risk and family-study (i.e., "genetic high-risk") designs, which provide a framework for investigating the neural changes that may occur proximally to the initial onset of psychosis. This work indicates that some of the alterations in brain function and structure in schizophrenia are primarily genetically mediated and also appear in some of patients' unaffected first degree relatives, while other alterations are present in individuals who manifest the illness phenotype but not in relatives at genetic risk (Cannon et al. 2002a, 2002c; Van Erp et al. 2002). Whereas the primarily genetically mediated deficits shared by at-risk but nonsymptomatic relatives are not likely to show differential change in the premorbid period and may be necessary but clearly not sufficient for the development of psychotic symptoms, the deficits specific to patients who manifest the illness phenotype are good candidates for marking the neurobiological processes associated with the emergence of psychotic symptoms at the time of schizophrenia onset. Preliminary results from longitudinal studies of individuals ascertained initially in a prodromal (i.e., "clinical high-risk") state appear to be interpretable within this framework. A number of questions arising from this line of inquiry need to be addressed in the current generation of prodromal research programs: To what extent do the neural systems affected by early and late neurodevelopmental influences overlap? Is there likely to be a schizophrenia-related disturbance in the processes associated with adolescent brain maturation, or are these maturational processes themselves intact, participating in psychosis onset only indirectly, by promoting a neurobiological context in which the early neurodevelopmental disturbances can be expressed in psychotic symptoms? What pattern of changes observable from in vivo imaging studies is consistent with a reduction in neuropil volume? We develop a framework for addressing these questions and evaluating their implications for understanding the roles of early and late neurodevelopmental influences in the etiology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Adult schizotypal personality characteristics and prenatal influenza in a Finnish birth cohort.

Recent evidence suggests that schizophrenia may result from a disruption of normal brain development during a critical, prenatal risk period in the 6th month of gestation. The phenotypic diagnostic manifestation of a basic genetic-neurodevelopmental disorder may consist of characteristics approximated by the DSM-IV diagnosis of "schizotypal personality disorder" (SPD). We identified male conscripts in Finland who, as fetuses, were exposed to the 1969 Hong Kong Influenza epidemic, along with a group of controls born during a relatively low year (1971) for infectious epidemics. It was hypothesized that among fetuses exposed to the influenza epidemic in their 6th month of gestation, we would observe an increased frequency of elevated (upper quartile) scores on a schizotypal personality characteristics (SPC) scale as compared to controls. A significantly higher proportion of the 6th month index exposed subjects (39%) had "elevated" SPC scale scores as compared to their controls (26%) (p<0.003). Further analyses revealed that these differences were accounted for by those exposed to the influenza epidemic in week 23 (51% vs. 24%) of the 6th month (p<0.005). Exploratory analyses for the other months did not reveal any significant differences. Implications and limitations of the week 23 findings are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Antipsychotic drug treatment in the prodromal phase of schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: The safety and tolerability of short-term treatment with a low dose of risperidone was evaluated in adolescents with prodromal symptoms and a family history of schizophrenia. METHOD: Four prodromal high-risk adolescents and six first-episode patients with schizophrenia were treated with average doses of 1.0 and 1.8 mg/day of risperidone, respectively, in an 8- to 12-week open-label trial. RESULTS: No significant treatment-related adverse events were noted. Severity of thought and behavior disturbance ratings declined by about 30%; performance on a test of verbal learning improved by about 100% during treatment in both prodromal and first-episode patients, changes that achieved statistical significance despite the small group sizes. CONCLUSIONS: These findings are preliminary and should not be used to guide health care decisions at this time. Randomized controlled trials are needed to determine whether antipsychotic drug treatment of prodromal patients can delay or prevent onset or attenuate the clinical course of schizophrenia.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Perinatal and childhood risk factors for later criminality and violence in schizophrenia. Longitudinal, population-based study.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be at increased risk for violent and criminal behaviour. Obstetric complications, neuromotor problems and intellectual deficits have variously been reported as increasing the risk for criminality in the general population. AIMS: To investigate whether such risk factors are associated with criminal behaviour in an epidemiological cohort of patients with schizophrenia. METHOD: We identified from health care registers all individuals with schizophrenia born in Helsinki between 1951 and 1960, and used the national criminal register to identify those with a criminal record by 1995. Childhood information was obtained from archived birth and school records. RESULTS: Poor educational attainment, poor grades for attention at school, higher birth weight and larger head circumference were significantly associated with the risk of criminal offending in adulthood in this sample of patients with schizophrenia. An association between labour/delivery complications and later violent offending among male patients was of borderline significance. CONCLUSIONS: Our hypotheses that birth complications and childhood neuromotor problems would increase the risk of criminal offending in schizophrenia were not upheld.

Adult↗