PROSPECTIVE STUDY OF CHILDREN OF SCHIZOPHRENIC PARENTS

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This is a proposal for a five-year renewal of a longitudinal project (the New York High-Risk Project) on children of schizophrenic, depressed or normal parents, which has been ongoing since 1971. Major goals of the sutdy have been concerned with the identification of early indicators of a liability to the development of schizophrenia or schizophrenis spectrum disorders. In the current grant period, the project was extended to include previuosly-not-studied siblings of the study children, and greater focus on the parents, and these additional subjects will continue to be studied in the renewal years. In the proposed renewal period, in which all subjects will be studied as adults, major goals are concerned with: (1) assessing early stages of illness in subjects who experience (or have recently experienced) a first episode of psychiatric disorder; (2) continuing to examine the concept of the schizophrenia spectrum, using our samples to attempt to define criteria with high sensitivity and specificity for relatives of schizophrenic probands; (3) continuing to study attentional and information processing (AIP) measures and smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) with respect to: the accuracy with which they predict to adult psychiatric disorders, their specificity for schizophrenia and related disorders, state-trait questions, and familial clustering; (4) updating diagnostic assessments on all family members; (5) carrying out a number of genetic analyses relating to differential risk estimates, and heritabilities and familial segregation of clinical features and of AIP and SPEM measures; (6) collecting blood samples to preserve DNA in the families of schizophrenic parents. Additionally, we hope to study possible buffers and stressors.