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. 2021 Nov 10;3(1):sgab049.
doi: 10.1093/schizbullopen/sgab049. eCollection 2022 Jan.

Social Cognition Impairments in 22q11.2DS Individuals With and Without Psychosis: A Comparison Study With a Large Population of Patients With Schizophrenia

Tommaso Accinni  1 , Antonino Buzzanca  1 , Marianna Frascarelli  1 , Luca Carlone  1 , Francesco Ghezzi  1 , Georgios D Kotzalidis  2 , Paola Bucci  3 , Giulia Maria Giordano  3 , Nicoletta Girardi  1 , Alessia Panzera  1 , Simone Montaldo  1 , Martina Fanella  1 , Carlo Di Bonaventura  1 , Carolina Putotto  4 , Paolo Versacci  4 , Bruno Marino  4 , Massimo Pasquini  1 , Massimo Biondi  1 , Fabio Di Fabio  1
Affiliations

Social Cognition Impairments in 22q11.2DS Individuals With and Without Psychosis: A Comparison Study With a Large Population of Patients With Schizophrenia

Tommaso Accinni et al. Schizophr Bull Open. .

Abstract

Background: 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11DS) represents one of the most important genetic risk factors for schizophrenia (SCZ) and a reliable biological model to study endophenotypic characters of SCZ. The aim of the study was to investigate Social Cognition impairments in subjects with 22q11.2DS compared to a considerable sample of schizophrenic patients.

Methods: Forty-four individuals with 22q11.2DS (DEL) and 18 patients with 22q11.2DS and psychosis (DEL_SCZ) were enrolled; these groups were compared to 887 patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and 780 healthy controls (HCs); the latter groups were recruited by the Italian Network for Research on Psychoses (NIRP) to which our Centre took part. Social cognition was evaluated through The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT). A resampling procedure was employed to balance differences in samples size.

Results: All clinical groups (DEL; DEL_SCZ; and SCZ) showed worse performance on TASIT than HCs, except in Sincere scale. No differences between-clinical groups were found, except for Simple Sarcasm, Paradoxical Sarcasm and Enriched Sarcasm scales.

Conclusions: SC was impaired in individuals with 22q11.2DS regardless of psychotic symptomatology, similarly to people with SCZ. Therefore, SC deficits may represent potential endophenotypes of SCZ contributing to the vulnerability to psychosis.

Keywords: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS); Italian Network for Research on Psychoses; neurocognition; psychosis; schizophrenia; social cognition; social inference; theory of mind.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Profile of the performances on the seven TASIT scales for each group. All variables were standardized with respect to the HC group, considered as the normative sample represented as the 0 line. Values are expressed in standard deviation units with respect to the normative sample (z-scores). Negative values indicate poorer performance with respect to the normative sample.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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