The presence of neurological soft signs along the psychosis proneness continuum

Barkus, Emma J., Stirling, John D., Hopkins, Richard S. and Lewis, Shôn (2006) The presence of neurological soft signs along the psychosis proneness continuum. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 32 (3). pp. 573-577. ISSN 0586-7614

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Abstract

Neurological soft signs have been observed in patients with schizophrenia and their relatives. However, it has not been considered whether the increased rates of neurological soft signs are related to measures of psychosis proneness in the general population. We tested this hypothesis in a group of normal volunteers (n = 28) who scored highly for positive schizotypy when assessed online and a control group (n = 33) who scored below the mean. Compared with the controls, high psychosis-prone individuals showed significantly higher Total and Other Soft Signs subscale scores on the Neurological Evaluation Scale. It appears that soft signs are also associated with psychosis proneness when measured in the general population, which suggests that soft signs are distributed along a continuum of risk for schizophrenia.