Two psychophysiological measures, poor suppression
of midlatency auditory-evoked responses in a paired stimulus
paradigm and ocular motor abnormalities, may index genetic
liability for schizophrenia. An important feature of these
measures is that both patients and their nonpsychotic relatives
exhibit basically the same performance. These
measures may be successful endophenotypes for schizophrenia
because they assess poor response inhibition associated
with dysfunction of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex circuitry.
Data bearing on this hypothesis are reviewed, and it is
posited that assessment of the auditory-evoked gamma band
response and saccade measures of inhibitory abilities are
the most valid behavioral measures of schizophrenia's
neuropathological correlates. The extant data suggest that
psychophysiological studies of schizophrenia can provide
consistent and theoretically meaningful information for
localizing neuropathology and for assessing the genetics
of this complex disorder.