Temporal lobe thickness and verbal memory in first-degree relatives of individuals with schizophrenia.

Cortical thinning in frontal and temporal regions has been reported in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and, less consistently, among their unaffected first-degree relatives. Likewise, first-degree relatives demonstrate attenuated differences in neurocognitive performance relative to healthy controls, indicating that neurocognitive performance may be an important endophenotype of the disorder. Less is known about how cortical thickness relates to neurocognitive performance in these individuals.

MMPI vulnerability indicators for schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder: UCLA family study of biological parents of offspring with childhood-onset schizophrenia or ADHD.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) scores were examined for 50 parents of children with an onset of schizophrenia prior to 14 years of age, 153 parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 168 parents of community comparison children. The parents were participants in the UCLA Family Study. The mean scores on all standard MMPI scales were within normal limits for all three groups of participants.

Validity of the family history method for diagnosing schizophrenia, schizophrenia-related psychoses, and schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders in first-degree relatives of schizophrenia probands.

This study examined the validity of the family history method for diagnosing schizophrenia, schizophrenia-related psychoses, and schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders in first-degree relatives of schizophrenia probands. This is the first large-scale study that examined the validity of the family history method for diagnosing DSM-III-R personality disorders. The best estimate DSM-III-R diagnoses of 264 first-degree relatives of 117 adult-onset schizophrenia probands based on direct structured diagnostic interviews, family history interview, and medical records were compared to Family History Research Diagnostic Criteria (FH-RDC) diagnoses based on the NIMH Relative Psychiatric History Interview and to family history Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R: Personality Disorders (SCID-II) diagnoses based on the SCID-II adapted to a third person format.

Neurocognitive impairments in nonpsychotic parents of children with schizophrenia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: the University of California, Los Angeles Family Study.

Background: We tested the hypotheses that certain neurocognitive impairments index genetic liability to schizophrenia and that childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS) is a variant of adult-onset schizophrenia (AOS) by determining whether parents of COS probands show the types of neurocognitive impairments found in relatives of AOS probands.

Methods: Parents of COS probands (n = 79) were compared with parents of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; n = 190) and community control (CC; n = 115) probands on 3 neurocognitive tasks shown in previous research to detect impairments in patients with AOS and ADHD and in the relatives of patients with AOS. Parents with a diagnosis of psychosis were excluded from the study.

The structure of schizotypy: relationships between neurocognitive and personality disorder features in relatives of schizophrenic patients in the UCLA Family Study.

Schizotypal personality features and certain neurocognitive deficits have been shown to aggregate in the relatives of schizophrenic patients, supporting the view that both are likely to reflect genetic contributions to liability to schizophrenia. Within the relatives of schizophrenic patients, however, the interrelationships between these potential indicators of liability to schizophrenia are not well known. Using data from the UCLA Family Study, we examine the interrelationships between personality disorder symptoms and neurocognitive functioning in nonpsychotic first-degree relatives of schizophrenic patients.

Neurocognitive functioning and schizophrenia spectrum disorders can be independent expressions of familial liability for schizophrenia in community control children: the UCLA family study.

This study provided a further test of the hypothesis that certain neuromotor, language and verbal memory dysfunctions reflect genetic predisposition to schizophrenia, by examining the effects of family loading for schizophrenia (FLS) in normal controls without personal histories of schizophrenia or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In a case control design, 11 community controls (CC) with FLS were compared to 47 CC without FLS on tests of expressive and receptive language, visual motor coordination, full scale intelligence and verbal memory. In this study, FLS primarily reflects the incidence of schizophrenia spectrum diagnoses in the second-degree relatives of CC probands.