Thought Disorder in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Probands, Their Relatives, and Nonpsychiatric Controls.
Thought disorder (TD) has long been associated with schizophrenia (SZ) and is now widely recognized as a symptom of mania and other psychotic disorders as well. Previous studies have suggested that the TD found in the clinically unaffected relatives of SZ, schizoaffective and bipolar probands is qualitatively similar to that found in the probands themselves. Here, we examine which quantitative measures of TD optimize the distinction between patients with diagnoses of SZ and bipolar disorder with psychotic features (BP) from nonpsychiatric controls (NC) and from each other. In addition, we investigate whether these same TD measures also distinguish their respective clinically unaffected relatives (RelSZ, RelBP) from controls as well as from each other. We find that deviant verbalizations are significantly associated with SZ and are co-familial in clinically unaffected RelSZ, but are dissociated from, and are not co-familial for, BP disorder. In contrast, combinatory thinking was nonspecifically associated with psychosis, but did not aggregate in either group of relatives. These results provide further support for the usefulness of TD for identifying potential non-penetrant carriers of SZ-risk genes, in turn enhancing the power of genetic analyses. These findings also suggest that further refinement of the TD phenotype may be needed in order to be suitable for use in genetic studies of bipolar disorder.
Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Charity J
CJ
Morgan
Psychology Research Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.
Michael J
MJ
Coleman
Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
Ayse
A
Ulgen
Psychology Research Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.|Deceased.
Lenore
L
Boling
Psychology Research Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.|Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.|Deceased.
Jonathan O
JO
Cole
Psychology Research Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.
Frederick V
FV
Johnson
Psychology Research Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.
Jan
J
Lerbinger
Psychology Research Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.|Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
J Alexander
JA
Bodkin
Psychology Research Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.|Deceased.|Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Philip S
PS
Holzman
Psychology Research Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.|Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.|Deceased.
Deborah L
DL
Levy
D000328:Adult; D000341:Affective Disorders, Psychotic / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology*; D058068:Endophenotypes; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*
bipolar disorder; endophenotype; genetics; heterogeneity; schizophrenia; thought disorder