Visual backward masking is a reliable and widely used tool in schizophrenia research. Whereas many studies have shown masking deficits in adult patients, there are only very few studies with adolescents with psychosis-and with controversial results. Masking deficits of adolescents are of primary interest because they are not caused by long-term suffering from the disease and severe medication. We investigated 15 adolescents with psychosis and 19 age-matched controls in the shine-through backward masking paradigm for which strong performance deficits were shown previously in adult schizophrenic patients and their relatives. Adolescents with psychosis were strongly impaired in the shine-through effect compared to controls. This result adds further evidence that backward masking is an endophenotype of schizophrenia.
Michael Herzog, Simona Adele Garobbio, Maya Roinishvili
Olaf Blanke, Maude Schneider, Nathan Quentin Faivre, Roy Salomon, Oliver Alan Kannape, Mariia Kaliuzhna, Henrique Galvan Debarba
Michael Herzog, Simona Adele Garobbio, Maya Roinishvili, Ophélie Gladys Favrod