Childhood pegboard task predicts adult-onset psychosis-spectrum disorder among a genetic high-risk sample.

Motor abnormalities have been established as a core aspect of psychosis-spectrum disorders, with numerous studies identifying deficits prior to clinical symptom presentation. Additional research is needed to pinpoint standardized motor assessments associated with psychosis-spectrum disorders prior to illness onset to enhance prediction and understanding of etiology. With a long history of findings among people with diagnosable psychosis-spectrum disorders, but little research conducted during the premorbid phase, pegboard tasks are a viable and understudied measure of premorbid for psychosis motor functioning.

Childhood dyspraxia predicts adult-onset nonaffective-psychosis-spectrum disorder.

Several neurological variables have been investigated as premorbid biomarkers of vulnerability for schizophrenia and other related disorders. The current study examined whether childhood dyspraxia predicted later adult nonaffective-psychosis-spectrum disorders. From a standardized neurological examination performed with children (aged 10-13) at genetic high risk of schizophrenia and controls, several measures of dyspraxia were used to create a scale composed of face/head dyspraxia, oral articulation, ideomotor dyspraxia (clumsiness), and dressing dyspraxia (n = 244).

Premorbid multivariate prediction of adult psychosis-spectrum disorder: A high-risk prospective investigation.

Premorbid prediction of psychosis-spectrum disorders has implications for both understanding etiology and clinical identification. The current study used a longitudinal high-risk for psychosis design that included children of parents with schizophrenia as well as two groups of controls (children whose parents had no mental illness, and children with at least one parent with a non-psychotic psychiatric diagnosis). Premorbid neurological factors and an indication of social function, as measured when participants were 10-13years of age, were combined to predict psychosis-spectrum disorders in adulthood.

Childhood cognitive measures as predictors of alcohol use and problems by mid-adulthood in a non-Western cohort.

This study examined the relationship between childhood cognitive functioning and academic achievement and subsequent alcohol use and problems in a non-Western setting. We examined longitudinal data from a birth cohort sample (N = 1,795) who were assessed at age 11 years on cognitive measures and then approximately 25 years later on lifetime alcohol use and alcohol use disorder symptom count. The sample was from Mauritius (eastern Africa), which allowed us to examine these relationships in a non-Western society with a different social structure than is typical of prior cognitive studies on primarily White samples in Western societies.

Religious factors associated with alcohol involvement: results from the Mauritian Joint Child Health Project.

Background: The purpose of this study was to examine religious factors associated with alcohol involvement in Mauritius. The three main religions on the island, Hinduism, Catholicism, and Islam, promote different views of the appropriate use of alcohol. Based on reference group theory, we hypothesized that both the content of a religion's alcohol norms and an individual's religious commitment would relate to alcohol use behavior.

Measurement invariance of internalizing and externalizing behavioral syndrome factors in a non-Western sample.

This study examined the measurement structure of Child Behavior Checklist internalizing and externalizing syndrome scales in 1,146 eleven-year-old children from a birth cohort in Mauritius. We tested for measurement invariance at configural, metric, and scalar levels by gender and religioethnicity (Creole, Hindu, Muslim). A pared-down model representing five primary factors and two secondary factors met all three forms of invariance, supporting the validity of their use for group comparisons among Mauritian children.

The association between p3 amplitude at age 11 and criminal offending at age 23.

Reduced P3 amplitude to targets is an information-processing deficit associated with adult antisocial behavior and may reflect dysfunction of the temporal-parietal junction. This study aims to examine whether this deficit precedes criminal offending. From a birth cohort of 1,795 children, 73 individuals who become criminal offenders at age 23 and 123 noncriminal individuals were assessed on P3 amplitude.

A developmental increase in allostatic load from ages 3 to 11 years is associated with increased schizotypal personality at age 23 years.

Although allostatic load has been investigated in mood and anxiety disorders, no prior study has investigated developmental change in allostatic load as a precursor to schizotypal personality. This study employed a multilevel developmental framework to examine whether the development of increased allostatic load, as indicated by impaired sympathetic nervous system habituation from ages 3 to 11 years, predisposes to schizotypal personality at age 23 years. Electrodermal activity to six aversive tones was recorded in 995 subjects at age 3 years and again at 11 years.

Premorbid IQ and adult schizophrenia spectrum disorder: verbal Performance subtests.

The present prospective high-risk study examined associations between childhood scores on five Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) subtests (vocabulary, similarities, block design, object assembly, and mazes) and later development of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). The sample comprised 244 high-risk or control children who were administered the WISC subtests at age 10 to 13 years in 1972. Adult psychiatric data were gathered from psychiatric interviews in 1992-93 and from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register in 2007.

A prospective study of smoking in young women and risk of later psychiatric hospitalization.

Background: It is not known whether smoking is a risk factor for mental disorders.

Aims: To investigate the prospective associations between cigarette smoking in pregnant women and a range of psychiatric hospital diagnoses.

Method: Using data from the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort, we followed a cohort of 7926 young women from 1959-61 to 2007, linking data on cigarette smoking with psychiatric admission diagnoses obtained from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register.

Early developmental milestones and risk of schizophrenia: a 45-year follow-up of the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between age of neuromotor milestone attainment and risk of adult schizophrenia. 5765 mothers of the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort recorded 12 developmental milestones during the child's first year of life. Cohort members were followed until they were 46-48 years old through record linkage with the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register.

The development of skin conductance fear conditioning in children from ages 3 to 8 years.

Although fear conditioning is an important psychological construct implicated in behavioral and emotional problems, little is known about how it develops in early childhood. Using a differential, partial reinforcement conditioning paradigm, this longitudinal study assessed skin conductance conditioned responses in 200 children at ages 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 years. Results demonstrated that in both boys and girls: (1) fear conditioning increased across age, particularly from ages 5 to 6 years, (2) the three components of skin conductance fear conditioning that reflect different degrees of automatic and controlled cognitive processes exhibited different developmental profiles, and (3) individual differences in arousal, orienting, and the unconditioned response were associated with individual differences in conditioning, with the influence of orienting increasing at later ages.

Association of poor childhood fear conditioning and adult crime.

Objective: Amygdala dysfunction is theorized to give rise to poor fear conditioning, which in turn predisposes to crime, but it is not known whether poor conditioning precedes criminal offending. This study prospectively assessed whether poor fear conditioning early in life predisposes to adult crime in a large cohort.

Method: Electrodermal fear conditioning was assessed in a cohort of 1,795 children at age 3, and registration for criminal offending was ascertained at age 23.

Reduced electrodermal fear conditioning from ages 3 to 8 years is associated with aggressive behavior at age 8 years.

Background: Poor fear conditioning characterizes adult psychopathy and criminality, but it is not known whether it is related to aggressive/antisocial behavior in early childhood.

Methods: Using a differential, partial reinforcement conditioning paradigm, electrodermal activity was recorded from 200 male and female children at ages 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 years. Antisocial/aggressive and hyperactive-inattentive measures were collected at age 8.

REM, not incubation, improves creativity by priming associative networks.

The hypothesized role of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is rich in dreams, in the formation of new associations, has remained anecdotal. We examined the role of REM on creative problem solving, with the Remote Associates Test (RAT). Using a nap paradigm, we manipulated various conditions of prior exposure to elements of a creative problem.

Association between prenatal exposure to bacterial infection and risk of schizophrenia.

Recent research suggests that prenatal exposure to nonviral infection may be associated with increased risk of schizophrenia, and we hypothesized an association between maternal bacterial infection during pregnancy and elevated offspring risk of schizophrenia. Data on maternal infections from the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort were linked with the Danish National Psychiatric Register. Offspring cases of narrowly defined schizophrenia (International Classification of Diseases, Eighth Revision [ICD-8]) and more broadly defined schizophrenia (ICD-8 and ICD-10) were identified before the ages of 32-34 and 45-47 years, respectively.

Parental psychiatric hospitalisation and offspring schizophrenia.

The risk of schizophrenia has been linked with a family history of schizophrenia and less strongly with other psychiatric disorders in family members. Using data from the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort and from the Danish Psychiatric Case Register, we studied the relationship between offspring risk of schizophrenia and a range of psychotic and non-psychotic psychiatric diagnoses in parents. Psychiatric admission data after 1969 were available for 7047 cohort members born between 1959 and 1961, and for 7006 mothers and 6993 fathers.

Early temperamental and psychophysiological precursors of adult psychopathic personality.

Emerging research on psychopathy in children and adolescents raises the question of whether indicators, such as temperament or psychophysiology, exist very early in life in those with a psychopathic-like personality in adulthood. This study tests the hypothesis that individuals who are more psychopathic in adulthood would be less fearful and inhibited and more stimulation seeking/sociable at age 3 and that they would also show reduced age 3 skin-conductance (SC) responsivity. In a community sample of 335 3-year-olds, behavioral measures of temperament were taken and electrodermal activity was recorded in response to both orienting and aversive tones.

Development of skin conductance orienting, habituation, and reorienting from ages 3 to 8 years: a longitudinal latent growth curve analysis.

Little is known about the development of the skin conductance orienting response (SCOR) in childhood. This longitudinal study examines the effects of age on initial SCOR, habituation, and reorienting. Skin conductance responses to nonsignal auditory stimuli were recorded from 200 male and female children at five different time points (ages 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 years).

Prenatal influenza exposure and delivery complications: implications for the development of schizophrenia.

This study assessed prenatal influenza exposure in relation to pregnancy complications and delivery complications. Participants of this study consisted of a community sample of all mothers of 1,795 children who were a birth cohort recruited at age 3 in a prospective longitudinal project in Mauritius. The onset of the 1968-1972 A2/Hong Kong influenza epidemic in January 1970 was established from officially published death rates and newspaper records.

Premorbid personality in schizophrenia spectrum: a prospective study.

Schizophrenia has been linked with premorbid character anomalies since it was first described. However, few prospective studies of premorbid personality characteristics in schizophrenia and related disorders have been conducted. This study evaluates premorbid personality in children who developed schizophrenia spectrum disorder in adult life.

Early weaning and hospitalization with alcohol-related diagnoses in adult life.

Objective: This study attempted to determine whether lack of breast-feeding or a short duration of breast-feeding during infancy is associated with an elevated risk of hospitalization with alcohol-related diagnoses in adult life.

Method: The study was a prospective longitudinal birth cohort design conducted in a sample of 6,562 men and women, all of whom were born in Copenhagen, Denmark, between October 1959 and December 1961. The sample was divided into two categories based on duration of breast-feeding, as assessed by a physician interview with mothers at a 1-year examination.