GENETIC MARKER--SELECTIVE ATTENTION IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

精神分裂症研究的一个很有前途的方向是 寻找疾病的遗传标记，以生物学为基础 识别具有基因突变的个体的特征 精神分裂症的易感性。注意力障碍是一种 作为精神分裂症遗传标记的有力候选者，因为 注意力异常是急性脑脊髓炎的中心症状 在两种慢性精神分裂症患者中都发现了精神分裂症 症状缓解和父母患有精神分裂症的儿童。 然而，这种注意力障碍的一种衡量标准是 独立于全局处理赤字，并特定于 精神分裂症是必须的。一种新的视觉信息处理任务 这一衡量基于预期的选择性有可能 填补这一空白。拟议研究的主要目标 是把有缺陷的注意力选择性作为一个潜在的 精神分裂症的遗传标记。我们计划使用认知和 选择性注意表型的神经生理学测量 精神分裂症多发多发大家系 确定有缺陷的选择性是否与相同的 传递精神分裂症风险的基因(S)。研究1将确定 认知和神经生理学测量的组合 优化正常注意力和异常注意力之间的区别 选择性。研究2将使用这种措施的组合在一个 建立缺陷选择性的纵向研究是一种 精神分裂症的特征标记而不是一种状态- 与精神错乱有关的依赖异常。研究3将 检查10个精神分裂症高发大家庭 异常的注意力选择性。这些家庭目前 正在进行的一项研究中对精神分裂症进行了基因分型。 威廉·F·拜尔利与霍华德·休斯医疗中心合作 研究所。然后，有缺陷的选择性将作为 精神分裂症易感基因的表型表达。

One of the promising directions in schizophrenia research is the search for genetic markers of the disorder, biologically-based characteristics that identify individuals with a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia. Attention dysfunction is a strong candidate as a genetic marker for schizophrenia because the attentional abnormalities that are a central symptom of acute schizophrenia have been found in both chronic schizophrenics in symptom remission and in children with a schizophrenic parent. However, a measure of this attentional dysfunction that is independent of global processing deficits and specific to schizophrenia is needed. A new visual information processing task that-measures expectation-based selectivity has the potential to fill this gap. The principal objective of the proposed research is to investigate defective attentional selectivity as a potential genetic marker for schizophrenia. We plan to use cognitive and neurophysiological measures of selective attention to phenotype large pedigrees with multiple incidence of schizophrenia in order to determine whether defective selectivity is linked to the same gene(s) that convey risk for schizophrenia. Study 1 will identify that combination of cognitive and neurophysiological measures which optimizes the distinction between normal and abnormal attentional selectivity. Study 2 will use this combination of measures in a longitudinal study to establish that defective selectivity is a trait marker specific to schizophrenia rather than a state- dependent abnormality associated with psychosis. Study 3 will examine ten large families with a high rate of schizophrenia for abnormal attentional selectivity. These families are currently being genotyped for schizophrenia in a study being conducted by Dr. William F. Byerley in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Defective selectivity will then be investigated as a phenotypic expression of genes transmitting risk for schizophrenia.