Deficient Attentional Modulation of the Startle Response in Patients With Schizotypal Personality Disorder

OBJECTIVE: Attentional deficits have been identified as an abnormality that individuals with schizotypal personality disorder share with schizophrenia patients. The purpose of this study was to examine automatic sensorimotor gating and controlled attentional modulation of the startle eye blink respo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of psychiatry 2003-09, Vol.160 (9), p.1621-1626
Main Authors: Hazlett, Erin A., Levine, Jill, Buchsbaum, Monte S., Silverman, Jeremy M., New, Antonia, Sevin, Elizabeth M., Maldari, Liza A., Siever, Larry J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Attention - physiology
Attentional processes
Auditory Perception - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Blinking - physiology
Female
Humans
Judgment - physiology
Male
Medical sciences
Motor ability
Neuropsychological Tests
Noise
Personality disorders
Psychological tests
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Reflex, Startle - physiology
Schizophrenia
Schizotypal Personality Disorder - diagnosis
Schizotypal Personality Disorder - psychology
Schizotypal personality disorders
Sensory modulation
Startle eyeblink response
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Summary:OBJECTIVE: Attentional deficits have been identified as an abnormality that individuals with schizotypal personality disorder share with schizophrenia patients. The purpose of this study was to examine automatic sensorimotor gating and controlled attentional modulation of the startle eye blink response in unmedicated subjects with schizotypal personality disorder. METHOD: Eighteen unmedicated patients with schizotypal personality disorder and 16 healthy individuals were assessed in an acoustic attention-to-prepulse paradigm. The participants performed a selective attention task involving the presentation of attended, ignored, and novel tones that served as prepulse tones. Acoustic startle probes were presented at short and long lead intervals after the onset of tones and occasionally during the intertone interval. RESULTS: The comparison subjects showed greater prepulse inhibition and prepulse facilitation during the attended than the ignored prepulses, demonstrating early and later attentional modulation of startle eye blink response. In contrast, the subjects with schizotypal personality disorder failed to show this pattern. CONCLUSIONS: Subjects with schizotypal personality disorder have deficits in controlled attentional processing, as indexed by modification of the startle eye blink response, that are similar to those observed in patients with schizophrenia.
ISSN:0002-953X
1535-7228
DOI:10.1176/appi.ajp.160.9.1621