Abstract
The auditory P300 response and smooth pursuit eye tracking were recorded from a group of 23 male adult subjects who had been diagnosed in childhood as having schizoid personality. No differences were found in these physiological measures between the study group, their matched controls of other child psychiatric patients, and a group of population controls. The essentially negative findings are discussed in the light of abnormalities of these psychophysiological responses previously found in schizophrenic patients, in some of their biological relatives, and in other groups of psychiatric patients, including autistic children and adults with a diagnosis of borderline and schizotypal personality disorder. Results suggest that “schizoid” children, despite their high scores on a measure of schizotypy, do not have schizophrenia spectrum disorder or that schizotypy is a heterogeneous condition.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
American Psychiatric Association (1980).Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.) Washington, DC:
Baron, M., Gruen, R., Rainer, J. D., Kane, J., Asnis, L., & Lord S. (1985). A familial study of schizophrenic and normal control probands: implications for the spectrum concept of schizophrenia.American Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 447–455.
Baron, M., Asnis, L., & Gruen, R. (1981). The schedule for Schizotypal Personalities (SSP): A diagnostic interview for schizotypal features.Psychiatric Research, 4, 213–228.
Barrett, K., McCallum, W. C., & Pocock, P. V. (1986). Brain indicators of altered attention and information processing in schizophrenic patients.British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 414–420.
Begleiter, H., Porjesz, B., Bihari, B., & Kissin, B. (1984). Event-related brain potentials in boys at risk for alcoholism.Science, 225, 1493–1496.
Blackwood, D. H. R., St. Clair, D. M., & Kutcher, S. P. (1986). P300 event-related potential abnormalities in borderline personality disorder.Biological Psychiatry, 21, 557–560.
Blackwood D. H. R., E. B. Meier, K. P. Muir, W. J. Sharp, C. W., Glabus, M. Walker, M. Souza, V. Dunan J. R., & Goodwin G. M., Correlation of regional cerebral blood flow equivalants measured by single photon emission computerized tomography with P300 latency and eye movement abnormality in schizophreniaACTA Psychiatrica Scandinavica (in press).
Blackwood, D. H. R., St. Clair, D. M., Muir, W. J., & Duffy, J. C. (1991a). Auditory P300 and eye tracking dysfunction in schizophrenic pedigrees.Archives of General Psychiatry, 48, 899–909.
Blackwood, D. H. R., St. Clair, D. M., Muir, W. J., Oliver, C. J., & Dickens, P. (1988). The development of Alzheimer's disease in Down's syndrome assessed by auditory event-related potentials.Journal of Mental Deficiency Research, 32, 439–453.
Blackwood, D. H. R., Whalley, L. J., Christie, J. E., Blackburn, I. M., St. Clair, D. M., & McInnes, A. (1987). Changes in auditory P3 event-related potential in schizophrenia and depression.British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 154–160.
Blackwood, D. H. R., Young, A. H., McQueen, J. K., Martin, M. J., Roxborough, H. M., Muir, W. J., St. Clair, D. M., & Kean, D. M. (1991b). Magnetic resonance imaging in schizophrenia: altered brain morphology associated with P300 abnormalities and eye track dysfunction.Biological Psychiatry, 30, 753–769.
Bolton, P., & Rutter, M. (1990). Genetic influences in autism.International Review of Psychiatry, 2, 67–80.
Courchesne, E., & Young-Courchesne, R. (1988). Event-related potentials. In M. Rutter, A. H. Tuma, & I. S. Lann (Eds.),Assessment and diagnosis in child psychopathology (pp. 264–299). London: David Fulton.
Dawson, G., Finlay, C., Phillips, S., Galpert, L., & Lewy, A. (1988). Reduced P3 amplitude of the event-related brain potential: Its relationship to language ability in autism.Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 18, 493–504.
Done, D. J., Johnstone, E. C., Frith, C. D., Golding, J., & Shepherd, P. M. (1991). Complications of pregnancy and delivery in relation to psychosis in adult life: Data from the British perinatal mortality survey sample.British Medical Journal, 302, 1576–1580.
Ebmeier, K. P., Mackenzie, A. R., Potter, D. D., & Salzen, E. A. (1989). Late positive eventrelated potentials in schizophrenia. In J. Crawford and D. Parker (Eds.),Developments in clinical and experimental neuropsychology (pp. 127–136). New York: Plenum Press.
Ebmeier, K. P., Glabus, M., Potter, D. D., & Salzen, E. A. (1992). The effect of different high-pass filter settings on peak latencies in the event-related potentials of schizophrenics, patients with Parkinson's disease and control.Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 84, 280–287.
Faux, S. F., Torello, M. W., McCarley, R. W., Shenton, M. E., & Duffy, E. H. (1988). P300 in schizophrenia: Confirmation and statistical validation of temporal region deficit in P300 topography.Biological Psychiatry, 23, 776–790.
Glabus M. F., Blackwood D. H. R., E. B. Meier, K. P. Meier, Souza V., Walker M. T., Sharp C. W., Dunan J. T., & Muir W. (1994). Methodological considerations in measurement of the P300 component of the auditory oddball ERP in schizophreniaElectroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 90 123–134.
Goodin, D. S., Squires, K. C., & Staff, A. (1978). Long latency event-related components of the auditory evoked potential in dementia.Brain, 101, 635–648.
Gunderson, J. G., Kolb, J. E., & Austin, V. (1981). The diagnostic interview for borderline patients.American Journal of Psychiatry, 138, 896–903.
Holzman, P. S., Proctor, L. R., Levy, D. R., Yasillo, N. J., Melzer, H. Y., & Hurt, S. W. (1974). Eye tracking dysfunction in schizophrenic patients and their relatives.Archives of General Psychiatry, 31, 143–151.
Holzman, P. S., Solomon, C. M., Levin, S., & Waternaux, C. S. (1984). Pursuit eye movement dysfunctions in schizophrenia.Archives of General Psychiatry, 41, 136–139.
Kendler, K. S., & Gruenberg, A. M. (1982). Genetic relationship between paranoid personality disorder and the schizophrenic spectrum disorders.American Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 1185–1186.
Kendler, K. S., Gruenberg, A. M., & Strauss, J. S. (1981). An independent analysis of the Copenhagen sample of the Danish adoption study of schizophrenia.Archives of General Psychiatry, 38, 982–984.
Kety, S. S. (1983). Mental illness in the biological and adoptive relatives and schizophrenic adoptees: Findings relevant to genetic and environmental factors in etiology.American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 720–727.
Kutcher, S. P., Blackwood, D. H. R., Gaskell, D. F., Muir, W. J., & St. Clair, D. M. (1989). Auditory P300 does not differentiate borderline personality disorder from schizoptypal personality disorder.Biological Psychiatry, 26, 766–774.
Kutcher, S. P., Blackwood, D. H. R., St. Clair, D. M., Gaskell, D. F., & Muir, W. J. (1987). Auditory P300 in borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia.Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 645–650.
Levit, R. A., Sutton, S., & Zubin, J. (1980). Evoked potential correlations of information processing in psychiatric patients.Psychological Medicine, 10, 487–494.
Lindsay, D. T., Holzman, P. S., Haberman, S., & Yasillo, N. J. (1978). Smooth pursuit eye movements: A comparison of two measurement techniques for studying schizophrenia.Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 491–496.
Lowing, P., Mirskey, A., & Pereira, R. (1983). The inheritance of schizophrenia spectrum disorders: A reanalysis of the Danish adoption study data.American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 1167–1171.
Lynn, P. A. (1984).An introduction to the analysis and processing of signals, (pp. 109–112). Macmillan: London.
Matthysse, S., Holzman, P. S., & Lange, K. (1986). The genetic transmission of schizophrenia: Application of Mendelian latent structure analysis to eye tracking dysfunctions in schizophrenia and affective disorder.Journal of Psychiatric Research, 20, 57–76.
Muir, W. J., St. Clair, D. M., & Blackwood, D. H. R. (1991). Long latency auditory event related potentials in schizophrenia and in bipolar and unipolar affective disorder.Psychological Medicine, 21, 867–879.
Pfefferbaum, A., Wenegrat, B. G., Ford, J. M., Roth, W. T., & Kopell, B. S. (1984). Clinical application of the P3 component of event-related potentials. II Dementia, depression and schizophrenia.Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 59, 104–124.
Romani, A., Merello, S., Gozzoli, L., Zervi, F., Grassi, J., & Cosi, V. (1987). P300 and CT scan in patients with chronic schizophrenia.British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 506–513.
Roth, W. T., & Cannon, E. H. (1972). Some features for the auditory evoked response in schizophrenia.Archives of General Psychiatry, 27, 466–471.
Roth, W. T., Horvarth, T. B., Pfefferbaum, A., & Kopell, B. S. (1980). Event related potentials in schizophrenics.Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 48, 127–139.
Roxborough, H., Muir, W. J., Blackwood, D. H. R., Walker, M. T., & Blackburn, I. M. (1993). Neuropsychological and P300 abnormalities in schizophrenics and their relatives.Psychological Medicine, 23, 305–314.
Rutter, M. (1987). Temperament, personality and personality disorder.British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 443–458.
Verleger, R., & Cohen, R. (1978). Effects of certainly, modality shift and guess outcome on evoked potentials and reaction times in chronic schizophrenics.Psychological Medicine, 8, 91–93.
Wolff, S. (1991). ‘Schizoid’ personality in childhood III: The childhood picture.British Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 629–635.
Wolff, S. (1993). Psychiatric morbidity and criminality in ‘schizoid’ children grown up: A records survey.European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (in press).
Wolff, S., & Chick, J. (1980). Schizoid personality in childhood: A controlled follow-up study.Psychological Medicine, 10, 85–100.
Wolff, S., Narayan, S., & Moyes, B. (1988). Personality characteristics of parents of autistic children: A controlled study.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 29, 143–153.
Wolff, S., Townshend, R., McGuire, R. J., & Weeks, D. (1991). ‘Schizoid’ personality in childhood and adult life II: Adult adjustment and the continuity with schizotypal personality disorder.British Journal of Psychiatry, 10, 85–100.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Rosemary Townshend was funded by a grant from the Scottish Home and Health Department; W. J. Muir was supported for part of the time by the Wellcome Trust; and Maura T. Walker by the Medical Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Blackwood, D.H.R., Muir, W.J., Roxborough, H.M. et al. “Schizoid” personality in childhood: Auditory P300 and eye tracking responses at follow-up in adult life. J Autism Dev Disord 24, 487–500 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172130
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172130