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Biomedical subjects

S A Mednick

Publications and source records attributed to S A Mednick.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

Hyperactive behavior and minor physical anomalies.

Minor physical anomalies (MPAs) are congenital abnormalities of body structure which reflect fetal maldevelopment. They originate in the same embryonic layer that produces the central nervous system, and it is reasoned that MPAs are markers of nervous system anomalies. High MPA counts have been associated with hyperactive behavior in normal and clinical populations of boys, and with inhibited behavior in normal groups of girls. The present sample of children from a longitudinal study of a Danish birth cohort show no significant sex differences in mean number of MPAs, but the male hyperactivity-MPA relation and the female inhibition-MPA relation is supported in this non-clinical sample. MPAs are not recommended for use in clinical screening or diagnosis at this time, but the evidence of a congenital, biological component to hyperactive behavior may eventually have useful implications for prevention and/or intervention.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Genetic influences in criminal convictions: evidence from an adoption cohort.

The possibility that genetic factors are among the causes of criminal behavior was tested by comparing court convictions of 14,427 adoptees with those of their biological and adoptive parents. A statistically significant correlation was found between the adoptees and their biological parents for convictions of property crimes. This was not true with respect to violent crimes. There was no statistically significant correlation between adoptee and adoptive parent court convictions. Siblings adopted separately into different homes tended to be concordant for convictions, especially if the shared biological father also had a record of criminal behavior.

Adoption↗
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↗
PubMed1983

The EEG after alcohol administration in men at risk for alcoholism.

The biologic sons of alcoholics constitute a group at high risk (HR) for alcoholism. A 0.5-g/kg dose of alcohol was administered to HR and control subjects aged 19 to 21 years. Blood alcohol concentration measurements failed to distinguish HR from control subjects, but quantitative measurements of EEG alpha activity differentiated them. The HR subjects exhibited greater increases in slow alpha energy and greater decreases of fast alpha energy after alcohol administration than controls; the HR subjects also showed greater decreases in mean alpha frequency after alcohol administration. These EEG findings suggest that subjects at high risk for alcoholism are physiologically more sensitive to alcohol than control subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Biological factors and crime: implications for forensic psychiatry.

To summarize, we can say that (1) Criminal behavior, especially chronic criminal behavior, seems to be partly genetically predisposed; (2) An important task at this point is to attempt to determine the biological factors which predispose people to crime; and (3) We have related some tentative initial steps being taken in the study of the autonomic nervous system as one possible heritable, biological basis for the failure of normal social learning forces in inhibiting criminal behavior. Early in this paper we discussed the tenability of asserting criminal responsibility on individuals whose criminal behavior has a partly genetic etiology. But this special consideration seems to set biological factors apart as being in some unique causal category. In fact, genetic, physiological, and biochemical factors are causal agents in the same sense as family, social class, or neighborhood factors. Of course, criminal behavior (like all other behavior) must be caused; one class of causal variables is the biological category. The legal doctrine of responsibility is not challenged by identifying biological factors as partially determining crime any more than it is by findings of social causation. Only in cases in which abnormal biological factors are exceptionally powerful influences might responsibility be challenged. Such cases will be quite rare.

Adoption↗
PubMed1983

Intellectual performance in children of alcoholics.

Alcoholics tend to show some cognitive deficits relative to nonalcoholics. The present study of a sample from a Danish birth cohort examined whether these deficits might be present in children at high risk for later alcoholism. The subjects were tested at age 12 with a Danish translation of the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children. Risk status for later alcoholism was defined by parental alcoholism as determined by interview and medical records. Results suggest that Performance IQ deficits may be consequential to alcoholism whereas Verbal deficits (characteristic of the high risk children) may be antecedent to alcoholism.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

The interaction of seasonality, place of birth, genetic risk and subsequent schizophrenia in a high risk sample.

Birth occurring in winter months, which are high viral infection months, have been repeatedly shown to produce a slight excess of later-diagnosed schizophrenics. As a result, some researchers have speculated on the possible aetiological effect of viral infections on some forms of schizophrenia. The implications of the viral hypothesis were indirectly tested in the context of an ongoing prospective study of Danish children at high-risk (HR) for schizophrenia. A third-order analysis of variance interaction was hypothesized. Genetically vulnerable individuals, born in winter, in an urban environment (which increases the likelihood of the presence and transmission of viruses) would be more likely, as foetuses or neonates, to have suffered some CNS damage due to the infection; thus they would show higher rates of schizophrenia in the HR-urban-winter birth condition reached 23.3 per cent, considerably above population base rates (1 per cent) or rates for the HR subjects (8.9 per cent). Alternative explanations for the results were explored.

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

EEG antecedents of thievery.

In Gothenburg studies using clinical and electroencephalographic techniques have been undertaken continuously since 1958 on a large number of individuals of all ages. All individuals studied were without impairment to the central nervous system, according to a number of well-defined defined clinical criteria, and were termed normal. The term "normal" is used primarily because it is short. As part of the continued investigation, information has been gathered from social bureaus in Gothenburg and from federal registers. It was observed that youths and children who were found guilty of theft showed EEG abnormalities of some kind (in the EEGs taken several years earlier) statistically significantly more often than other youths and children belonging to our normal material. Among the characteristics discovered by EEG can be noted paroxysmal activity during sleep, slow alpha activity and spectral-analytical measurements corresponding to lower EEG ages than the individuals' actual ages.

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↗
PubMed1981

Effects of parental absence and institutionalization on the development of clinical symptoms in high-risk children.

Longitudinal data on 207 Danish subjects at high-risk for schizophrenia (they have schizophrenic mothers) were examined to assess the direct and indirect effects of parental absence and institutionalization on the development of schizophrenic symptomatology. Information on the amount of parental absence and institutional child care during the first through 10th year was collected in 1962. A psychiatric evaluation, consisting of a standardized interview and two questionnaires (PSE and CAPPS), was administered to the subjects in 1972. Factors were constructed relating to eight clinical symptoms from the interview and questionnaires. Path analyses were performed separately for males and females with maternal absence, paternal absence and institutionalization as the predictors and the clinical syndromes as the dependent variables. The analyses showed both direct effects of parental absence and indirect effects mediated by institutionalization. For males, the absence of a schizophrenic mother was related to decreased symptomatology, but only when it did not result in institutionalization. Institutionalization was related to increased symptoms in males but not females. These results are discussed in light of previous research, and explanations are offered for the differential effects by sex.

Adolescent↗