RESUMO
Intellectual asymmetry with superiority of verbal skills to spatial skills frequently characterises patients with schizophrenia, but it is unclear whether this pattern also reflects genetic susceptibility to the disorder. We examined the association of a continuous measure of genetic liability to schizophrenia with Verbal-Spatial Contrast IQ (an index of intellectual asymmetry) in 108 first-degree relatives without psychosis of probands with schizophrenia. Higher genetic liability was significantly associated with greater intellectual asymmetry in favour of verbal skills. Intellectual asymmetry with a relative superiority of verbal skills to spatial skills represents a putative endophenotype of schizophrenia.
Assuntos
Saúde da Família , Inteligência , Esquizofrenia/genética , Psicologia do Esquizofrênico , Adolescente , Adulto , Idoso , Feminino , Predisposição Genética para Doença , Humanos , Testes de Inteligência , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Fenótipo , Comportamento VerbalRESUMO
We report cognitive performance of a group of individuals who are likely to have transmitted liability to psychosis to their offspring. Out of 230 relatives of patients with psychosis, 27 met our criteria for a presumed obligate carrier, that is a non-psychotic individual who had a parent or a sibling as well as an offspring with psychosis. The presumed obligate carriers showed impairments in verbal memory and in visuospatial manipulations, suggesting that these individuals transmit vulnerability for psychosis to their offspring in terms of a disability to recall verbal information and an impaired capacity to perceive spatial relations.
