ANTISACCADE PERFORMANCE IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA AND AFFECTIVE-DISORDER

The authors examined psychotic patients with schizophrenia, major depr ession, and bipolar disorder; ''normal'' participants; and ist-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia on an antisaccade task in whi ch participants were instructed to move their eyes in the opposite dir ection of a target that moved unpredictably and abruptly either to the left or right of central fixation. Patients with schizophrenia were f ound to make significantly more errors than their relatives, and the l atter made more errors than the controls. The poor performance of the relatives could not be attributed to their having a psychiatric disord er. Comparison of the 3 patient groups indicated that antisaccade defi cits were more pronounced in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.