Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YF, UK.
Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK.
Exp Brain Res. 2019 Jul;237(7):1869-1879. doi: 10.1007/s00221-019-05554-7. Epub 2019 May 13.
Schizotypy is a personality dimension within the general population elevated among schizophrenia-spectrum patients and their first-degree relatives. Sensory gating is the pre-attentional habituation of responses distinguishing between important and irrelevant information. This is measured by event-related potentials, which have been found to display abnormalities in schizophrenic disorders. The current study investigated whether 6-month-old infants of mothers with schizotypic traits display sensory gating abnormalities. The paired-tone paradigm: two identical auditory tones (stimulus 1 and stimulus 2) played 500 ms apart, was used to probe the selective activation of the brain during 15-minutes of sleep. Their mothers completed the Oxford and Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences-Short Form as an index of schizotypy dimensionality, categorized into: infants of control, and infants of schizotypic, mothers. The findings revealed that although the infants' P50 components displayed significant differences between stimulus 1 and stimulus 2 in the paired-tone paradigm, there was no clear difference between infants of schizotypic and infants of control mothers. In contrast, all mothers displayed significant differences between stimulus 1 and stimulus 2, as observed in the infants, but also significant differences between their sensory gating ability correlated with schizotypy dimensionality. These findings are consistent with sensory processes, such as sensory gating, evidencing impairment in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. The present research supports the idea that first-degree relatives of individuals who identify on this spectrum, within the sub-clinical category, do not display the same deficit at 6 postnatal months of age.
分裂型特质是一般人群中的一个人格维度，在精神分裂症谱系患者及其一级亲属中升高。感觉门控是对区分重要信息和不重要信息的反应的前注意习惯化。这是通过事件相关电位来衡量的，已经发现精神分裂症障碍存在异常。本研究调查了具有分裂型特征的母亲的 6 个月大婴儿是否存在感觉门控异常。使用成对音调范式：两个相同的听觉音调（刺激 1 和刺激 2）相隔 500 毫秒播放，用于探测在 15 分钟睡眠期间大脑的选择性激活。他们的母亲完成了牛津和利物浦情感和体验-短表作为分裂型维度的指标，分为：控制组婴儿和分裂型组婴儿的母亲。研究结果表明，尽管婴儿的 P50 成分在成对音调范式中刺激 1 和刺激 2 之间显示出显著差异，但分裂型组婴儿和控制组婴儿之间没有明显差异。相比之下，所有母亲在刺激 1 和刺激 2 之间都显示出显著差异，就像婴儿一样，但她们的感觉门控能力也与分裂型维度存在显著差异。这些发现与感觉处理一致，例如感觉门控，在精神分裂症谱系障碍中存在损害。本研究支持这样一种观点，即在亚临床类别中识别出该谱系的个体的一级亲属，在 6 个月大时不会表现出相同的缺陷。
