Familial Schizophrenia and Spectrum Personality Disorders

Completed

Conditions studied: Schizophrenia

In brief

We propose to recruit 150 case families (i.e., families with a schizophrenia proband), 150 control families, and 45 control subjects who exhibit schizophrenia spectrum personality symptoms in the absence of a family history of schizophrenia. Participants will undergo a number of clinical, electrophysiological, perceptual, and cognitive assessments. These data will be used to identify phenotypes likely to be associated with genetic risk for schizophrenia, and to determine how these phenotypes aggregate in families. Some of the analyses will focus on examining associations between candidate genes and these alternative phenotypes. Thus if we are not able to recruit relatives we may still collect these phenotypic data in probands and their genetic sample for future genotype/phenotype association studies. Testing procedures require a 10-12 hour time commitment and testing will be completed over 2 or more days. Participants will be asked to give a blood (or saliva if difficult to obtain blood sample for instance because of fear of blood draws), which will be stored for future genetic analyses.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT00666146

Run by

University of Maryland, Baltimore

People needed

539

Starts

2004-07-01

Expected to finish

2020-01-01

Last updated by the study team

2021-05-03

Who can join

Age: 16 and older, up to 58. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• All male and female participants must be age 16 and above.
• Case probands will include individuals who meet DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia or Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC) for schizoaffective disorder.
• Control probands will include individuals matched with case probands with respect to age, gender, and county of residence who do not meet DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders.
• Case and control relatives will include all available and age-eligible first-degree relatives of identified case and control probands. Exception to this criterion will occur if we identify a schizophrenia proband family of large pedigree willing to participate, then we will include several generations of relatives (second, third or more degree) for subsequent linkage studies in a subgroup of our sample.
• SSP controls will include individuals recruited from the community who exhibit schizophrenia spectrum personality (SSP) traits in the absence of a personal or family history of psychotic illness.

You may not qualify if…

• Subjects under 16 years of age will be excluded.
• Subjects with serious medical, neuro-ophthalmological or neurological illness (e.g., cancer,seizure disorders,encephalopathy), current substance abuse or extensive history or drug dependence will be excluded, with the exception of subjects participating for clinical interview and blood sample only.
• Subjects with mental retardation will be excluded.
• Control probands and SSP controls who meet DSM-IV criteria for a psychotic illness, or have a family history of psychotic illness will be excluded.
• Schizophrenic patients who are judged to be incompetent to provide voluntary informed consent based on the ESC evaluation

Where it is running

• Community Mental Health Centers — Baltimore, Maryland, United States
• VA Medical Center — Baltimore, Maryland, United States
• University of Maryland, Baltimore — Catonsville, Maryland, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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