Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T17:29:58.844Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Converging evidence from taxometric analyses confirms a cognitive subtype of schizophrenia with distinct genetic basis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2014

M Dragovic  and
A Jablensky
M Dragovic
Affiliation:
Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry, The University of Western Australia
A Jablensky
Affiliation:
Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry, The University of Western Australia
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
Type
Abstracts from ‘Brainwaves’— The Australasian Society for Psychiatric Research Annual Meeting 2006, 6–8 December, Sydney, Australia
Information
Acta Neuropsychiatrica , Volume 18 , Issue 6 , December 2006 , pp. 284
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Blackwell Munksgaard

Background:

Two distinct schizophrenia subtypes have recently been identified by the Western Australian Family Study of Schizophrenia by grade of membership (GoM) analysis of the phenotype (Hallmayer et al. 2005; Jablensky 2006): one characterized by pervasive cognitive deficit (CD) and low scores on personality trait measures and one featuring significant personality deviations but with relatively intact cognitive performance [cognitively spared (CS)]. Whole-genome scan of 93 families discovered significant linkage to 6p25-22 for the CD subtype, while the linkage for CS subtype was definitively excluded for that region. The aim of this study was to investigate by another method whether differences between these subtypes are qualitative or quantitative.

Methods:

Several taxometric procedures, originally proposed by P. Meehl (1994, 1996, 1998), were used to analyze taxonicity of schizophrenia subtypes: mean-above-mean-below-a-cut, maximum-eigenvalue and latent mode analyses in a sample of 138 individuals with schizophrenia and schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Results:

Three independent taxometric procedures showed consistently a latent taxonomic structure in our sample of patients with schizophrenia. Estimated mean base rates for CD taxon ranged from 0.37 to 0.43, suggesting that about 40% of patients with schizophrenia belong to this taxon.

Conclusions:

CD schizophrenia subtype is discrete, that is, taxonic. Taxometric analyses have further corroborated the existence of an etiologically discrete schizophrenia subtype.