Using data from the Child Health and Development Study (CHDS) birth cohort at the Oakland Kaiser Foundation, it was found that, out of nearly 20,000 individuals born to mothers participating in the Kaiser health plan between 1959 and 1966, almost 12,000 continued to participate in the program until at least age 30. Of these, 186 individuals had been hospitalized within the Kaiser system with sufficient information in their charts to make a potential diagnosis of schizophrenia. Further chart review indicated that there was sufficient evidence of schizophrenia in 122 cases to attempt interviews. Face-to-face diagnostic interviews have been conducted with 100 patients. Although diagnostic interviews with the remaining patients are scheduled to continue until the end of October 1998, it is unlikely that more than a few will occur, due to subject refusal and to our inability to locate these individuals. In addition to the hospitalized patients, 1700 individuals from the same cohort have been seen in Kaiser?s Outpatient Psychiatric Clinic; presumably, some of these will also be schizophrenic. Initial review of these charts suggests 400 possible cases of schizophrenia. During the next year, we will be examining these charts to determine who should be interviewed. Once a diagnosis of schizophrenia is confirmed, the prenatal records collected throughout the three trimesters of each subject?s gestation will be examined for associations with the later development of schizophrenia. Furthermore, frozen serum has been preserved from each trimester of these pregnancies. Among other things, the serum will be examined for antibody titers to suspected viral agents felt to be prenatally involved in schizophrenia. Dr. Alan Brown, in collaboration with the groups at the University of California at San Francisco and Davis, will be submitting a grant proposal to examine identified patients, matched to two controls from the same cohort, using neuroanatomical (MRI) and neurochemical (MRS) imaging techniques, as well as a neuropsychological battery. Depending on the statistical power available to us, we will be both looking at differences between patients and controls, as well as the relationship between prenatal and neonatal events and current anatomical, neurochemical, and neuropsychological findings.
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