Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:49:41.643Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Skin conductance habituation during acute episodes of schizophrenia: qualitative differences from anxious and depressed patients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Christopher D. Frith ,
Marilyn Stevens ,
Eve C. Johnstone  and
T. J. Crow
Christopher D. Frith*
Affiliation:
CRC Division of Psychiatry, Watford Road, Harrow
Marilyn Stevens
Affiliation:
CRC Division of Psychiatry, Watford Road, Harrow
Eve C. Johnstone
Affiliation:
CRC Division of Psychiatry, Watford Road, Harrow
T. J. Crow
Affiliation:
CRC Division of Psychiatry, Watford Road, Harrow
*
Address for correspondence: Dr C. D. Frith, CRC Di vision of Psychiatry, Watford Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 3UJ.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

Skin conductance habituation was measured in schizophrenic patients (N = 41) during an acute episode and compared with neurotic patients (N = 86) who were either predominantly anxious or predominantly depressed. All patients were tested before the onset of drug treatment. Between the 14th and 15th tone of the 17 tone simple habituation series a loud ‘dishabituating’ tone was inserted.

In terms of traditional measures based on response frequency, non-habituation was most frequent in the anxious patients and least frequent in the depressed patients, with schizophrenic patients being intermediate. However, in terms of response amplitude the schizophrenic patients showed significantly faster habituation than either neurotic group. This paradox seems to be a consequence of the frequency of spontaneous fluctuations which was highly related to habituation status in the schizophrenic group, but not in the neurotic groups. When habituation was defined in terms of response amplitudes falling below spontaneous fluctuation amplitudes (rather than zero) the schizophrenic group showed the lowest frequency of non-habituation.

None of the groups showed any evidence of dishabituation after the loud tone, but the schizophrenics showed a significantly smaller response to the loud tone itself. Following Groves & Thompson (1970), this is interpreted as showing that the loud tone induced a greater response because of its perceived difference from the other tones rather than a sensitization effect because of its loudness. In these terms the schizophrenic patients showed greater response generalization than the neurotic patients.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , August 1982 , pp. 575 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bernstein, A. S., (1967). Electrodermal base level, tonic arousal, and adaption in chronic schizophrenics. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 72, 221–232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bernstein, A. S. (1970). Phasic electrodermal orienting response in chronic schizophrenics. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 75, 146–156.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carney, M. W. P., Roth, M. & Garside, R. F. (1965). The diagnosis of depressive symptoms and the prediction of ECT response. British Journal of Psychiatry 111, 659–674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connolly, J. F. & Frith, C. D. (1978). Effects of varying stimulus content on habituation and sensitization of the OR. Physiology and Behaviour 21, 511–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cromwell, R. J. (1968). Stimulus redundancy and schizophrenia. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 146, 360–378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deakin, J. F. W., Baker, H. F., Frith, C. D., Joseph, M. H. & Johnstone, E. C. (1979). Arousal related to excretion of noradrenaline metabolities and clinical aspects of non-medicated chronic schizophrenia patients. Journal of Psychiatric Research 15, 57–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feighner, J. P., Robins, E., Guze, S. B., Woodruff, R. D., Winokur, G. & Munoz, R. (1972). Diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research. Archives of General Psychiatry 26, 57–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, D. P., Cooper, B., Eastwood, M. R., Kedward, H. B. & Shepherd, M. (1970). A standardised psychiatric interview for use in community surveys. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine 24, 18–23.Google ScholarPubMed
Groves, P. M. & Thompson, R. F. (1970). Habituation: a dual process theory. Psychological Review 77, 419–480.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gruzelier, J. H. (1976). Clinical attributes of schizophrenic skin conductance responders and non-responders. Psychological Medicine 6, 245–249.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gruzelier, J. H. (1978). Bimodal states of arousal and lateralized dysfunction in schizophrenia and the effects of chlorpromazine. In The Nature of Schizophrenia: New Approaches to Research and Treatment (ed. Wynne, L. C., Cromwell, R. L. and Matthysse, S.), pp. 167–187. Wiley: New York.Google Scholar
Gruzelier, J. H. & Venables, P. H. (1972). Skin conductance orienting activity in a heterogeneous sample of schizophrenics. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 155, 277–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruzelier, J. H. & Venables, P. H. (1974). Bimodality and lateral asymmetry of skin conductance orienting activity in schizophrenics: replication and evidence of lateral asymmetry in patients with depression and disorders of personality. Biological Psychiatry 8, 55–73.Google ScholarPubMed
Gruzelier, J. H., Connolly, J., Eves, F., Hirsch, S., Zaki, S., Weller, M. & Yorkston, N. (1981). Effect of propranolol and phenothiazines on electrodermal orienting and habituation in schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 11, 97–108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, M. (1959). The assessment of anxiety states by rating. British Journal of Medical Psychology 32, 50–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, M. (1967). Development of a rating scale for primary depressive illness. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 6, 278–296.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lader, M. H. & Wing, L. (1966). Physiological Measures, Sedative Drugs and Morbid Anxiety. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Lykken, P. T. & Venables, P. H. (1971). Direct measurement of skin conductance: a proposal for standardization. Psychophysiology 8, 656–672.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, I., Levy, A. B. & Slubicka, B. (1975). Response relationships in SRR conditioning. Psychophysiology 12, 83–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meddis, R. (1980). Unified analysis of variance by ranks. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology 33, 84–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, T. & Venables, P. H. (1978). Bilateral skin conductance and skin potential in schizophrenic and normal subjects. Psychophysiology 15, 556–560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Payne, R. W., Matussek, P. & George, E. I. (1959). An experimental study of schizophrenic thought disorder. Journal of Mental Science 105, 627–652.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sokolov, Y. N. (1963). Perception and the Conditioned Reflex. Pergamon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Straube, E. R. (1979). On the meaning of electrical non-responding in schizophrenia. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 167, 601–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toone, B. K., Cooke, R. & Lader, M. H. (1981). Electrodermal activity in the affective disorders and schizophrenia Psychological Medicine 11, 497–508.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E. & Sartorius, N. (1974). Measurement and Classfication of Psychiatric Symptoms. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Zahn, T. P. (1976). On the bimodality of the distribution of the electrodermal orienting responses in schizophrenic patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 162, 195–199.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zahn, T. P., Carpenter, W. T. & McGlashan, T. H. (1981). Autonomic nervous system activity in acute schizophrenia. II. Relationships to short-term prognosis and clinical status. Archives of General Psychiatry 38, 260–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar