Young Children, Adolescents



Young Children or Adolescents

Introduction

Background Theory

Even though schizophrenia that is childhood onset is very uncommon, a considerable number of children having relentless disturbance in their emotional states have short-lived symptoms bordering on psychotic level which rest out of the established boundaries of syndromes. The link between children belonging to this particular group, with such children who have childhood onset schizophrenia and a host of other disorders of psychiatric nature, remains a mystery.

Through this particular study, the researchers observed the eye tracking of smooth pursuit which is considered to be a signature of schizophrenia in adolescents and children, who possess disorders of psychotic nature (not limiting to childhood-onset schizophrenia only) with subjects who are healthy for comparison.

The method used in this research is infrared oculgraphy which reads the smooth pursuit movements of the eye while 17 second task of visual pursuit was qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated in a sample of 55 young adolescents. Of these 55, the break-up was done as follows:

26 children with unspecified psychotic disorder

29 children with childhood-onset schizophrenia

38 healthy children for comparison

Dysfunction of eye-tracking is identified by the means of an irregularity in the system of smooth pursuit which has been observed in 21%-85% of the patients of schizophrenia and around 8% of the normal healthy people. Similarly, matching dysfunction of eye-tracking is also seen in the 19%-34% of the people who are biologically the first degree relatives of the people who suffer from schizophrenia including the offspring of these people.

More research of patients suffering from psychotic illnesses has shown inconsistent results in regards to the dysfunction of smooth pursuit eye tracking, making it impossible for the researchers to diagnose if it is particularly related to schizophrenia or it also has a link with numerous other non-affective psychotic illnesses. One can attribute these discrepancies in the results to issues in the size of the sample or another changing criterion of diagnosis or even the methodologies applied during the studies.

Discussion

Methodology

Subjects

The children and their parents provided express consent before the initiation of the research. Patients both male and female ranging in an age bracket of 6-18 and previously diagnosed with the kind of schizophrenia of which the psychotic symptoms appeared before the child touched the age of 12 were recruited. The presence of neurological or medical illnesses along with a 70 premorbid IQ was exclusionary. There was a thorough examination prior to the study.

Healthy Volunteers

People who fell in the category of 'healthy comparison subjects' were recruited from a current brain development study. They did not have any neurological disorder in their lifetimes, nor did they have a history or first degree relatives suffering from one.

MRI, Cognitive and Behavioral Assessments

Through the literature which was analyzed, the following neurobiological and clinical measurements were observed for the related evaluation of the variable of eye-tracking: study of age, IQ (full scales) and the ratings of the severity of symptoms from the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms.

Procedure of Eye-Tracking

The movements of the eyes were recorded ...