Tsuang M T, Faraone S V
Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Boston 02115, USA.
Acta Psychiatr Scand Suppl. 1999;395:2-11. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1999.tb05977.x.
Target features are clinical or neurobiological characteristics that are expressions of the underlying predisposition to an illness. They comprise a wide range of phenomena, from the classic signs and symptoms of psychopathology to sophisticated measures of brain structure and function. For schizophrenia, many target features have been identified. These include eye tracking dysfunction, attentional impairment, allusive thinking, neurological signs, thought disorder, characteristic auditory evoked potentials, neuropsychological impairment, structural brain abnormalities and functional brain abnormalities. In their most pathological forms, these features are present among many schizophrenic patients, yet it is their presence among their non-psychotic relatives that shows them to be target features. We discuss the theoretical background for target features, present examples and describe how the discovery of target features has implications for schizophrenia research.
目标特征是临床或神经生物学特征，是疾病潜在易感性的表现。它们包括广泛的现象，从精神病理学的经典体征和症状到复杂的脑结构和功能测量。对于精神分裂症，已经确定了许多目标特征。这些包括眼球追踪功能障碍、注意力损害、牵连观念、神经体征、思维紊乱、特征性听觉诱发电位、神经心理损害、脑结构异常和脑功能异常。在其最病态的形式中，这些特征在许多精神分裂症患者中存在，但正是它们在非精神病亲属中的存在表明它们是目标特征。我们讨论目标特征的理论背景，给出实例并描述目标特征的发现如何对精神分裂症研究产生影响。
