title: Affective reactivity of cognitive functioning and family history in schizophrenia.
abstract: This article reports the results of two related studies investigating the association between affective reactivity of cognitive functioning in schizophrenia and family psychiatric history. In Study #1, we examined affective reactivity of positive formal thought disorder symptoms in 29 schizophrenic inpatients. We found that thought disorder was greatly exacerbated by negative affect in those patients with a family history of schizophrenia (SFH) (n = 11), and not in those without the family history (SNFH) (n = 18). In Study #2, we replicated this finding with a stable outpatient sample (n = 10). We also administered dichotic listening tests using affectively neutral and affectively negative stimuli, and found that right-ear advantage was more markedly diminished on the affectively negative task than on the neutral task in the SFH (n = 6) but not the SNFH (n = 4) subjects. These findings support our hypothesis that cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia are exacerbated by negative affect, and that this affective reactivity of symptoms is associated with a familial form of the disorder.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519, USA.
authors.forename: N M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Docherty
authors.forename: E S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Grosh
authors.forename: B E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Wexler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D004007:Dichotic Listening Tests; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*; D012564:Schizophrenic Language; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013850:Thinking