Quantification of NSS differences yielded a mean effect size of 0.81 for schizophrenia patients and their non-psychotic relatives and 0.97 for non-psychotic relatives of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls.

Conclusions: The current findings show that there are large group differences in NSS prevalence between patients with schizophrenia, non-psychotic relatives, and healthy controls. These results are consistent with the argument that NSS are familial in nature, segregate with the illness and may be valid and useful endophenotypes.

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“Although an increasing body of evidence links being overweight in midlife with an increased risk for dementia in late life, no studies have examined the association between being overweight in midlife and cognitive ability in late life. Our aim was to Mdivi1 concentration examine the association between being overweight in midlife as measured by body mass index (BMI) and cognitive ability assessed over time.

Participants in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study Aging were derived from a population-based sample. The participants completed baseline surveys in 1963 or 1973 (mean age 41.6 years,

range 25-63 years). The surveys included questions about height, weight, diseases, and lifestyle factors. Beginning in 1986, the same individuals were assessed on neuropsychological tests every 3 years VE-821 molecular weight (except in 1995) until 2002. During the study period, 781 individuals who were 50 years and older (60% women) had at least one complete neuropsychological assessment. A composite score of general cognitive ability was derived from the cognitive test battery for each measurement occasion.

Latent growth curve models adjusted for twinness showed most that persons with higher midlife BMI scores had significantly lower general cognitive ability and significantly steeper longitudinal decline than their thinner counterparts. The association did not change substantially when persons who developed dementia during the study period were excluded from the analysis.

Higher midlife BMI scores precede lower general cognitive ability and steeper cognitive decline

in both men and women. The association does not seem to be mediated by an increased risk for dementia.”
“Categorization of psychotic illnesses into schizophrenic and affective psychoses remains an ongoing controversy. Although Kraepelinian subtyping of psychosis was historically beneficial, modern genetic and neurophysiological studies do not support dichotomous conceptualization of psychosis. Evidence suggests that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder rather present a clinical continuum with partially overlapping symptom dimensions, neurophysiology, genetics and treatment responses. Recent large scale genetic studies have produced inconsistent findings and exposed an urgent need for re-thinking phenomenology-based approach in psychiatric research.