AFFECTIVE REACTIVITY OF COGNITIVE-FUNCTIONING AND FAMILY HISTORY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

article reports the results of two related studies investigating the a ssociation between affective reactivity of cognitive functioning in sc hizophrenia and family psychiatric history. In Study #1, we examined a ffective reactivity of positive formal thought disorder symptoms in 29 schizophrenic inpatients. We found that thought disorder was greatly exacerbated by negative affect in those patients with a family history of schizophrenia (SFH) (n = 11), and not in those without the family history (SNFH) (n = 18), In Study #2, we replicated this finding with a stable outpatient sample (n = 10), We also administered dichotic lis tening tests using affectively neutral and affectively negative stimul i, and found that right-ear advantage was more markedly diminished on the affectively negative task than on the neutral task in the SFH (n = 6) but not the SNFH (n = 4) subjects, These findings support our hypo thesis that cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia are exacerbated by neg ative affect, and that this affective reactivity of symptoms is associ ated with a familial form of the disorder.