Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY
Volume 166, Issue 9, Pages 1041-1047Publisher
AMER PSYCHIATRIC PUBLISHING, INC
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.08091400
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Funding
- NIMH [R03MH076846]
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH [F31MH012803, R03MH076846] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
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Objective: The authors examined whether motor coordination difficulties assessed in childhood predict later adult schizophrenia spectrum outcomes. Method: A standardized childhood neurological examination was administered to a sample of 265 Danish children in 1972, when participants were 10-13 years old. Adult diagnostic information was available for 244 members of the sample. Participants fell into three groups: children whose mothers or fathers had a psychiatric hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia (N=94); children who had at least one parent with a psychiatric record of hospitalization for a nonpsychotic disorder (N=84); and children with no parental records of psychiatric hospitalization (N=66). Psychiatric outcomes of the offspring were assessed through psychiatric interviews in 1992 when participants were 31-33 years of age, as well as through a scan of national psychiatric registers completed in May 2007. Results: Children who later developed a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (N=32) displayed significantly higher scores on a scale of coordination deficits compared with those who did not develop a mental illness in this category (N=133). Conclusions: Results from this study provide further support for the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia and underscore the potential role of cerebellar and/or basal ganglia abnormalities in the etiology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia.
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