Title

Comparison Of Three Computer-Administered Cognitive Tasks As Putative Endophenotypes Of Schizophrenia

Keywords

Continuous Performance Test; Endophenotypes; Schizophrenia; Schizotypal personality questionnaire; Schizotypy

Abstract

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that individuals with schizotypal personality features (SPF) exhibit similar endophenotypic traits as persons with schizophrenia. Less research has compared the relative sensitivity of different endophenotypes in the same sample of individuals with SPF. Fourteen university students with SPF (mean age 20.5 ± 1.6; 43% male) and 26 controls (mean age 20.3 ± 1.1; 31% male) were defined by the Abbreviated Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ-B). All participants reported no known biological relative with schizophrenia. Participants completed three computer-administered cognitive tasks: a 6-min degraded-stimuli A-X Continuous Performance Test (CPT), the Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST), and a Span of Apprehension (SOA) task (6- and 12-letter arrays). On the CPT, only omission errors resulted in a statistically significant group difference, U = 115.5, p = .05, Cohen's d = 0.54 (medium effect size), with the SPF group (mean errors: 3.43 ± 3.28) making more omission errors than controls (mean errors: 1.88 ± 2.66). Notably, 46% of the controls had no omission errors, compared to 14% of the SPF group. The only SPQ-B factor score to show a statistically significant linear relationship with CPT omission errors was the Cognitive-Perceptual factor (rs = .33, p = .04). Group differences on performance indices from the SOA and WCST did not approach statistical significance. Based on performance from the community-identified schizotypes, results suggest that performance on the CPT may represent a more robust endophenotype of schizophrenia, compared to the SOA and WCST. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

12-1-2006

Publication Title

Schizophrenia Research

Volume

88

Issue

1-3

Number of Pages

36-46

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2006.08.002

Socpus ID

33750634177 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/33750634177

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