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NEW RESEARCH BY an NUI Galway Professor has found that the risk of of developing schizophrenia may be identified by changes in cognitive ability.
Professor of Psychology Gary Donohue said tell-tale signs found in IQ, memory or social intelligence tests could indicate the onset of the disorders.
He said cognitive deficits often appear before the emergence of clinical symptoms and go on to predict individual levels of disability.
The study, which was funded by Science Foundation Ireland and the Health Research Board, assessed performance on a number of cognitive functions known to be affected in psychosis.
Study
A total of 424 patients participated in the study, including 340 with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 83 with bipolar or major depressive disorder with psychotic features.
Patients were given individual scores based on their loading for genetic variants interacting with ZNF804A, the first genome wide significant variant to be identified for schizophrenia.
Across patient groups, higher scores on this ZNF804A were associated with poorer performance on multiple cognitive measures, including both general cognitive ability and a measure social cognition, often popularly referred to as social intelligence.
“Understanding how genetic variants contribute to this aspect of disability, both individually and interaction, is an important step towards understanding the underlying biology and developing better and more personalised treatments,” he said.
The research was carried out in association with colleagues from Trinity College, Dublin and has just been published in leading journal, JAMA psychiatry.
Dr. April Hargreaves and Dr. Kristen Nicodemus were joint first authors on the paper.
Performance
Dr. Hargreaves said the fact that they were able to account for a greater proportion of the variance in cognitive performance by looking at multiple variants, suggests that this approach represents an important next step in modeling the genetic complexity of cognition and identifying risk factors for psychosis.
Schizophrenia or bipolar disorder affects about one in 50 Irish adults and it is yet unknown what causes or triggers schizophrenia.
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I didn’t realise mental health issues were the end of all jokes around here.Explains the current crisis the country is in I suppose.
That’s madness
What’s madness Fergus, this seems to me important research.
I know, it’s mental
Ok Fergal, I give in.
Demented stuff
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I’m a schizophrenic
And so am I
Researchers believe they can spot the signs of schizophrenia even earlier by examining particular motor difficulties. Back in the 1990s an ingenious study blind reviewed the childhood home movies of schizophrenics and noted neuromotor precursors such as strange hand movements when compared to their siblings.
So too make a long story story short prof O Donohue. Has said there is a thin line between genius and madness. And they both run in families. To test this hypnosis. He takes a sample group in Ireland a country with one of the highest levels of mental health issues in the world. And guss what he’s right. So he has just proven what our granny’s told us.
Mind boggling :-/
Is it just me or does the last paragraph in this article give the impression that schizophenia is the same thing as bipolar?
Nope, it does read that way, and a distinction should really be made as these are separate diagnoses.
have your say