Pupillary constriction during haloperidol treatment as a predictor of relapse following drug withdrawal in schizophrenic patients.

It has been proposed that the autonomic nervous system is dysregulated in schizophrenia. We hypothesized that measures of autonomic function, even during neuroleptic stabilization, might predict relapse following withdrawal of medication. Previously, shorter latencies to maximum pupillary constriction have been reported to differentiate acutely hospitalized schizophrenic patients from control subjects.

Cardiac responsivity in individuals at high risk for alcoholism.

Heart rate was recorded from male siblings over the age of 30 who were members or either alcoholic or control families. Brothers from alcoholic families included both those with a diagnosis of alcoholism (n = 66) and those without such a diagnosis (n = 18). Control brothers (n = 33) were chosen for absences of any Axis I psychopathology including alcoholism in all first- and second-degree relatives.

Beat-by-beat cardiac responses in normals and schizophrenics to events varying in conditional probability.

Anticipatory cardiac deceleration and poststimulus acceleration were studied in schizophrenic inpatients and controls during performance of a counting task. Reduced cardiac responding has been reported for schizophrenic patients for paradigms using relatively long intertrial intervals. During a relatively fast rate of stimulus presentation (3-s interstimulus interval), changes in cardiac interbeat interval were measured in 20 inpatient male chronic schizophrenics and 18 control volunteers.