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Greenwood TA, Swerdlow NR, Sprock J, Calkins ME, Freedman R, Green MF, Gur RE, Gur RC, Lazzeroni LC, Light GA, Nuechterlein KH, Radant AD, Silverman JM, Stone WS, Sugar CA, Tsuang DW, Tsuang MT, Turetsky BI, Braff DL, Duncan E. Heritability of acoustic startle magnitude and latency from the consortium on the genetics of schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 2020; 224:33-39. [PMID: 33189519 PMCID: PMC7728376 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2020.11.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2020] [Revised: 09/18/2020] [Accepted: 11/02/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Latency of the acoustic startle reflex is the time from presentation of the startling stimulus until the response, and provides an index of neural processing speed. Schizophrenia subjects exhibit slowed latency compared to healthy controls. One prior publication reported significant heritability of latency. The current study was undertaken to replicate and extend this solitary finding in a larger cohort. METHODS Schizophrenia probands, their relatives, and control subjects from the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia (COGS-1) were tested in a paradigm to ascertain magnitude, latency, and prepulse inhibition of startle. Trial types in the paradigm were: pulse-alone, and trials with 30, 60, or 120 ms between the prepulse and pulse. Comparisons of subject groups were conducted with ANCOVAs to assess startle latency and magnitude. Heritability of startle magnitude and latency was analyzed with a variance component method implemented in SOLAR v.4.3.1. RESULTS 980 subjects had analyzable startle results: 199 schizophrenia probands, 456 of their relatives, and 325 controls. A mixed-design ANCOVA on startle latency in the four trial types was significant for subject group (F(2,973) = 4.45, p = 0.012) such that probands were slowest, relatives were intermediate and controls were fastest. Magnitude to pulse-alone trials differed significantly between groups by ANCOVA (F(2,974) = 3.92, p = 0.020) such that controls were lowest, probands highest, and relatives intermediate. Heritability was significant (p < 0.0001), with heritability of 34-41% for latency and 45-59% for magnitude. CONCLUSION Both startle latency and magnitude are significantly heritable in the COGS-1 cohort. Startle latency is a strong candidate for being an endophenotype in schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Neal R. Swerdlow
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA
| | - Joyce Sprock
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA
| | - Monica E. Calkins
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
| | - Robert Freedman
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO
| | - Michael F. Green
- VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA,Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
| | - Raquel E. Gur
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
| | - Ruben C. Gur
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
| | - Laura C. Lazzeroni
- Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA,Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA
| | - Gregory A. Light
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA,VISN-22 Mental Illness, Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA
| | - Keith H. Nuechterlein
- Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
| | - Allen D. Radant
- VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA,Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
| | - Jeremy M. Silverman
- James J. Peters VA Medical Center, New York, NY,Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY
| | - William S. Stone
- Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA,Massachusetts Mental Health Center Public Psychiatry Division of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA
| | - Catherine A. Sugar
- Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA,Department of Biostatistics, University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA
| | - Debby W. Tsuang
- VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA,Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
| | - Ming T. Tsuang
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA
| | - Bruce I. Turetsky
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
| | - David L. Braff
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA
| | - Erica Duncan
- Atlanta Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Decatur, GA, United States of America; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, United States of America.
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Acoustic startle response in rats predicts inter-individual variation in fear extinction. Neurobiol Learn Mem 2017; 139:157-164. [PMID: 28131759 DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2017.01.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2016] [Revised: 01/12/2017] [Accepted: 01/19/2017] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Although a large portion of the population is exposed to a traumatic event at some point, only a small percentage of the population develops post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suggesting the presence of predisposing factors. Abnormal acoustic startle response (ASR) has been shown to be associated with PTSD, implicating it as a potential predictor of the development of PTSD-like behavior. Since poor extinction and retention of extinction learning are characteristic of PTSD patients, it is of interest to determine if abnormal ASR is predictive of development of such deficits. To determine whether baseline ASR has utility in predicting the development of PTSD-like behavior, the relationship between baseline ASR and freezing behavior following Pavlovian fear conditioning was examined in a group of adult, male Sprague-Dawley rats. Baseline acoustic startle response (ASR) was assessed preceding exposure to a Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm where freezing behavior was measured during fear conditioning, extinction training, and extinction testing. Although there was no relationship between baseline ASR and fear memory following conditioning, rats with low baseline ASR had significantly lower magnitude of retention of the extinction memory than rats with high baseline ASR. The results suggest that baseline ASR has value as a predictive index of the development of a PTSD-like phenotype.
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