Diagnostic accuracy and linkage analysis: how useful are schizophrenia spectrum phenotypes?

摘要: Objective : Numerous studies suggest that the nonschizophrenic relatives of schizophrenic patients exhibit psychiatric and other features discriminate them from normal comparison subjects. These have been put forth as spectrum phenotypes may be variant manifestations schizophrenia genotype. However, most these do not address a key measurement question does diagnostic accuracy classifications warrant their use in genetic linkage ? Method The authors reviewed 30 putative indicators genotype schizotypal personality disorder, eye tracking dysfunction, attentional impairment, auditory evoked potentials, neurological signs, neuropsychological allusive thinking. Results Although each 42 measures discriminated subjects, analysis suggested only six would improve informativeness data. Conclusions Many proposed for useful because high false positive rates (poor specificity). Future work aimed at describing developing should assess measures.