Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States of America.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States of America.
Schizophr Res. 2020 Oct;224:33-39. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2020.11.003. Epub 2020 Nov 12.
Latency of the acoustic startle reflex is the time from presentation of the startling stimulus until the response, and provides an index of neural processing speed. Schizophrenia subjects exhibit slowed latency compared to healthy controls. One prior publication reported significant heritability of latency. The current study was undertaken to replicate and extend this solitary finding in a larger cohort.
Schizophrenia probands, their relatives, and control subjects from the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia (COGS-1) were tested in a paradigm to ascertain magnitude, latency, and prepulse inhibition of startle. Trial types in the paradigm were: pulse-alone, and trials with 30, 60, or 120 ms between the prepulse and pulse. Comparisons of subject groups were conducted with ANCOVAs to assess startle latency and magnitude. Heritability of startle magnitude and latency was analyzed with a variance component method implemented in SOLAR v.4.3.1.
980 subjects had analyzable startle results: 199 schizophrenia probands, 456 of their relatives, and 325 controls. A mixed-design ANCOVA on startle latency in the four trial types was significant for subject group (F(2,973) = 4.45, p = 0.012) such that probands were slowest, relatives were intermediate and controls were fastest. Magnitude to pulse-alone trials differed significantly between groups by ANCOVA (F(2,974) = 3.92, p = 0.020) such that controls were lowest, probands highest, and relatives intermediate. Heritability was significant (p < 0.0001), with heritability of 34-41% for latency and 45-59% for magnitude.
Both startle latency and magnitude are significantly heritable in the COGS-1 cohort. Startle latency is a strong candidate for being an endophenotype in schizophrenia.
听觉惊跳反射潜伏期是指从呈现惊跳刺激到反应的时间，提供了神经处理速度的指标。与健康对照组相比，精神分裂症患者的潜伏期较慢。之前有一项研究报告称潜伏期具有显著的遗传性。本研究旨在更大的队列中复制和扩展这一孤立发现。
来自精神分裂症遗传学联合会（COGS-1）的精神分裂症患者、其亲属和对照受试者在一个范式中接受测试，以确定惊跳的幅度、潜伏期和预脉冲抑制。范式中的试验类型有：脉冲单独、脉冲前 30、60 或 120 毫秒的试验。采用协方差分析比较各受试组，以评估惊跳潜伏期和幅度。采用 SOLAR v.4.3.1 中的方差分量法分析惊跳幅度和潜伏期的遗传度。
980 名受试者具有可分析的惊跳结果：199 名精神分裂症患者、456 名亲属和 325 名对照。四种试验类型的惊跳潜伏期混合设计协方差分析结果显著（F（2,973）= 4.45，p = 0.012），即患者最慢，亲属居中，对照组最快。通过协方差分析，对单独脉冲试验的幅度在组间有显著差异（F（2,974）= 3.92，p = 0.020），即对照组最低，患者最高，亲属居中。遗传度显著（p < 0.0001），潜伏期的遗传度为 34-41%，幅度的遗传度为 45-59%。
在 COGS-1 队列中，惊跳潜伏期和幅度均具有显著的遗传性。惊跳潜伏期是精神分裂症的一个候选内表型。
