Biological Implications of the Overlapping Phenomenon Between Childhood Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorders-Heterogeneity Approach Rather Than Diagnostic Boundary

National Taiwan University

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Autism Spectrum Disorder; Schizophrenia

Treatments: Other: Structural anatomy

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06063525

201412165RINB

Details and patient eligibility

About

Complex diseases such as schizophrenia and autism are heterogeneous in clinical presentation and etiology. This high heterogeneity constitutes the challenges for the clinical diagnosis and etiological research, resulting in that the majority of research findings cannot be replicated in the independent samples. For the high comorbid rate between the diagnoses of schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and the shared neurocognitive deficits, genetic risks, and biological markers between the two disorders, a heterogeneity approach may probably be more promising than to arbitrarily split the two diagnostic categories apart or lump them together for etiological research. In schizophrenia, patients with a very early onset of disease and with preceding neurodevelopmental conditions may imply a different underlying etiology from those with typical onset and without neurodevelopmental conditions. Echoing the evidence that in early onset Parkinson's disease, PARK2 (encoding parkin protein) mutations are successfully reported to be as frequent as 49% with an autosomal-recessive mode of inheritance , representing a specific disease entity of Parkinson's disease. Therefore, it is critical to characterize the clinical phenotypes for this subpopulation of very early onset patients, including their clinical manifestation, disease course, and treatment response, as well as early developmental history and morphological characteristics. These may establish an important base for investigating the etiology and providing adequate clinical care for the heterogeneous syndrome of schizophrenia

Enrollment: 230 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 15 to 59 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• SZ group: schizophrenia onset earlier than 12 years old
• COS group: schizophrenia onset later than 12 years old
• ASD group: diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder without schizophrenia
• Dual group: diagnosed with ASD and SZ

Exclusion criteria

• congenital disease
• major physical diseases
• neurodegenerative disorder
• chromosomal aberration

Trial design

230 participants in 3 patient groups

childhood onset schizophrenia (COS)

Description:

diagnosis of schizophrenia under the age of 13 years.

Treatment:

Other: Structural anatomy

schizophrenia (SZ)

Description:

patients with schizophrenia with and age of onset later than 13 years

Treatment:

Other: Structural anatomy

autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Description:

dual diagnosis of schizophrenia and ASD, including SZ with ASD, COS with ASD

Treatment:

Other: Structural anatomy