title: Handwriting analysis indicates spontaneous dyskinesias in neuroleptic naïve adolescents at high risk for psychosis.
abstract: Growing evidence suggests that movement abnormalities are a core feature of psychosis. One marker of movement abnormality, dyskinesia, is a result of impaired neuromodulation of dopamine in fronto-striatal pathways. The traditional methods for identifying movement abnormalities include observer-based reports and force stability gauges. The drawbacks of these methods are long training times for raters, experimenter bias, large site differences in instrumental apparatus, and suboptimal reliability. Taking these drawbacks into account has guided the development of better standardized and more efficient procedures to examine movement abnormalities through handwriting analysis software and tablet. Individuals at risk for psychosis showed significantly more dysfluent pen movements (a proximal measure for dyskinesia) in a handwriting task. Handwriting kinematics offers a great advance over previous methods of assessing dyskinesia, which could clearly be beneficial for understanding the etiology of psychosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Center for Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder.
authors.forename: Derek J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Dean
authors.forename: Hans-Leo
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Teulings
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Caligiuri
authors.forename: Vijay A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Mittal
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D020820:Dyskinesias / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D006236:Handwriting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D014150:Antipsychotic Agents