Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T21:08:20.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dermatoglyphic Evidence of Fluctuating Asymmetry in Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

C. S. Mellor
C. S. Mellor*
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland
*
∗Correspondence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Fluctuating asymmetry provides a measure of an organism's capacity to buffer adverse factors that could disturb its development. It is estimated from the differences between theoretically identical right- and left-sided structures. Dermatoglyphic fluctuating asymmetry has been recently used to investigate developmental disorders. Fingerprints and palm prints of schizophrenic patients, which had been the subjects of an earlier report of conventional dermatoglyphic trait frequencies, were reanalysed to determine their level of fluctuating asymmetry. A review of the diagnostic protocols and clinical records used in the original study indicated that most of the 482 subjects would have met DSM–III–R criteria for schizophrenia. The schizophrenic sample had significantly higher levels of fluctuating asymmetry on four dermatoglyphic traits, the finger-ridge counts, fingerprint patterns, the palmar atd angles and palmar a-b ridge counts, than controls. This finding supports the results of two earlier studies, and its relevance to the roles of genetics, foetal insults, and developmental anomalies of the brain in the aetiology of schizophrenia is discussed.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 160 , Issue 4 , April 1992 , pp. 467 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992 

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

American Psychiatric Association (1987) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn, revised) (DSM–III–R). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Crow, T. J., Ball, J., Bloom, S. R., et al (1989) Schizophrenia as an anomaly of development of cerebral asymmetry. Archives of General Psychiatry, 46, 1145–1150.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dalén, P. (1988) Schizophrenia, season of birth and maternal age. British Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 727–733.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fang, T. C. (1949) A comparative study of the a-b ridge count on the palms of mental defectives and the general population. Journal of Mental Science, 96, 780–787.Google Scholar
Fish, F. J. (1958) Leonhard's classification of schizophrenia. Journal of Mental Science, 104, 34–54.Google Scholar
Fleiss, J. L. (1981) Statistical Methods for Rates and Proportions. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Gottesman, I. I. & Shields, J. (1967) A polygenic theory of schizophrenia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 58, 199–205.Google Scholar
Holt, S. B. (1959) The correlations between ridge-counts on different fingers estimated from a population sample. Annals of Human Genetics, 23, 459–460.Google Scholar
Jakob, H. & Beckman, H. (1989) Gross and histological criteria for developmental disorders in the brains of schizophrenics. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 82, 466–469.Google Scholar
Kobyliansky, E. & Micle, S. (1986) Handedness and dermatoglyphic direction and fluctuating asymmetry. Zeitschrift fur Morphologie und Anthropologie, 76, 313–329.Google Scholar
Livshits, G. & Kobyliansky, E. (1987) Dermatoglyphic traits as possible markers of developmental processes in humans. American Journal of Human Genetics, 26, 111–127.Google ScholarPubMed
Markow, T. A. & Wandler, K. (1986) Fluctuating dermatoglyphic asymmetry and the genetics of liability to schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research, 19, 323–328.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markow, T. A. & Gottesman, I. I. (1989) Fluctuating dermatoglyphic asymmetry in psychotic twins. Psychiatry Research, 29, 37–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGue, M., Gottesman, I. I. & Rao, D. E. (1983) The transmission of schizophrenia under a multifactorial threshold model. American Journal of Human Genetics, 35, 1161–1178.Google Scholar
Mellor, C. S. (1968) Dermatoglyphics in schizophrenia. Part I: Qualitative aspects. Part II: Quantitative study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 1387–1397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellor, C. S. (1970) First rank symptoms of schizophrenia: I the frequency in schizophrenics on admission to hospital, II differences between individual first rank symptoms. British Journal of Psychiatry, 117, 15–23.Google Scholar
Mellor, C. S., Sims, A. C. P. & Cope, R. V. (1981) Change of diagnosis in schizophrenia and first rank symptoms: an eight year follow-up. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 22, 184–188.Google Scholar
Micle, S. & Kobyliansky, E. (1988) Sex differences in the intra individual diversity of finger dermatoglyphics: pattern types and ridge counts. Human Biology, 60, 123–134.Google Scholar
Murray, R. M. & Lewis, S. W. (1987) Is schizophrenia a neurodevelopmental disorder? British Medical Journal, 295, 681–682.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palmer, A. R. & Strobeck, C. (1986) Fluctuating asymmetry: measurement, analysis, patterns. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 17, 391–421.Google Scholar
Penrose, L. S. (1954) The distal triradius t on the hands of parents and sibs of mongol imbeciles. Annals of Human Genetics, 19, 10–38.Google Scholar
Penrose, L. S. & Ohara, P. T. (1973) The development of the epidermal ridges. Journal of Medical Genetics, 10, 201–208.Google Scholar
Roberts, G. W. (1988) Abnormalities in brain structure in schizophrenia. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 1, 83–89.Google Scholar
Siegel, S. (1956) Nonparametric Statistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Sokal, R. R. & Rohlf, F. J. (1981) Biometry (2nd edn). New York: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Soulé, M. (1979) Heterozygosity and developmental stability: another look. Evolution, 33, 396–401.Google Scholar
Soulé, M. & Cuzin-Rudy, J. (1982) Allomeric variation. 2. Developmental instability of extreme phenotypes. American Naturalist, 120, 765–786.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Valen, L. (1962) A study of fluctuating asymmetry. Evolution, 16, 125–142.Google Scholar
Woolf, C. M. & Gianas, A. D. (1976) Congenital cleft lip and fluctuating dermatoglyphic asymmetry. American Journal of Human Genetics, 26, 400–403.Google Scholar
Woolf, C. M. & Gianas, A. D. (1977) A study of fluctuating dermatoglyphic asymmetry in the sibs and parents of deft lip propositi. American Journal of Human Genetics, 29, 503–507.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.