N 100 and P 300 components in schizophrenia patients , bipolar patients , and their first - degree relatives

Schizophrenia patients and a subset of patients with bipolar disorder suffer from psychosis. Both disorder have been found to have shared genetic risk factors. In order to assess these claims further, endophenotypes for these disorders need to be established. Electroencephalography provides a means for measuring low level auditory processing through event related potentials. In the study a dichotic listening tasks was present to participants in 4 blocks of trials, varying tone pitch and attention between trials. The N100 and P300 component amplitudes were examined. Relatives of schizophrenia patients were also included in this analysis to assess the components ability to be classified as endophenotypes. It was found that schizophrenia patients, bipolar patients with psychotic features, and relatives of schizophrenia patients exhibit reduced N100 amplitudes compared to controls and bipolar patients without psychotic features. Reduced P300 amplitudes were observed for schizophrenia patients, their first-degree relatives, and bipolar patients without psychotic features. Trend-level results in regards to this component were also obtained for bipolar patients with psychotic features. N100 and P300 components in schizophrenia patients, bipolar patients, and their first-degree relatives. 3