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Abstract: Schizophrenic patients have well-documented abnormalities in smooth pursuit eye movements and antisaccade performance. In populations at risk for schizophrenia, smooth pursuit abnormalities are also well documented. Antisaccade deficits have been replicated in high-risk populations as well, but the findings are more variable and the reasons for the variability are not clear. Some evidence suggests that antisaccade deficits increase in high-risk populations in relation to the presence of positive symptoms. Whether antisaccade deficits increase in relation to negative symptoms in high-risk populations is relatively uninvestigated. We evaluated antisaccade and pursuit performance in “psychometric schizotypes” who had elevated scores on either the Perceptual Aberration Scale (PerAb; i.e., positive symptoms) or the Physical Anhedonia Scale (PhysAnh; i.e., negative symptoms) but not both, and in normal controls. We used the standard version of the antisaccade task, for which results in positive-symptom schizotypes have previously been reported, and investigated performance on a gap and overlap version. We replicated the finding that a significantly larger percentage of positive-symptom schizotypes than controls have elevated antisaccade error rates on the standard antisaccade task (P=0.03); the percentage of negative-symptom schizotypes with elevated antisaccade error rates did not differ from that of control subjects. Neither schizotypal group was impaired on the gap or overlap versions of the task. On the pursuit task, a higher percentage of positive- and negative-symptom schizotypes were classified as having deviant performance than control subjects (both Ps<0.04). These findings suggest that antisaccade deficits may be better at identifying high-risk subjects with positive symptoms. Pursuit deficits identified both positive- and negative-symptom schizotypes, but was better at identifying the latter. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objective: The purpose of this study was to ascertain the current diagnoses in late adolescence or early adulthood of children who had previously been diagnosed as "borderline." Method: This was a prospective follow-up study of 19 of a group of 32 children (ages 6-10) who had been diagnosed as "borderline" during their treatment at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center approximately 10-20 years earlier. Life history information was collected, and axis I and axis II diagnoses were assigned by use of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R and unstructured clinical interviews. Results: The most significant finding was that, contrary to expectations, there were no axis I diagnoses of affective disorders or schizophrenia. On the other hand, axis II diagnoses were prevalent, and the overall outcome for the subjects was poor. Family stability was the only significant predictor of the relatively good outcome of five of the subjects. Conclusions: The childhood borderline diagnosis appears to be an antecedent of an array of adult personality disorders, but it is not associated with the adult borderline personality disorder per se, nor with axis I diagnoses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]