Behavioral and cognitive core domains shared between autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.docVIP

Open Journal of Psychiatry, 2013, 3, 26-31 OJPsych /10.4236/ojpsych.2013.32A005 Published Online April 2013 (/journal/ojpsych/) Behavioral and cognitive core domains shared between autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia Hirofumi Morioka, Yoichi Kawaike, Hisami Sameshima, Shinji Ijichi * Health Service Center, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima, Japan * Email: jiminy@hsc.kagoshima-u.ac.jp Received 27 February 2013; revised 30 March 2013; accepted 10 April 2013 Copyright ? 2013 Hirofumi Morioka et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Li- cense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Schizophrenia; Reality Distortion; Psychotic Conditions Growing genetic evidence including results of ge- nome-wide association studies and whole-genome sequencing is still perplexing scientists in the fields of human complex traits and compels them to recon- sider the relationship between autism spectrum dis- order (ASD) and schizophrenia. The developmental trajectory of schizophrenia may be characterized by difficulties in “theory of mind” tasks, poor insight or imagination, low empathy level, weak executive func- tion, failure in social judgments, delayed language development, movement mannerisms, motoric rituals, strong preoccupation with unusual objects, bizarre habits, and high intelligence. Most of these character- istics are associated with the standard criteria for ASD and all of them are core domains or endopheno- types of ASD. The diagnosed ASD cases, which were found in individuals with schizophrenia, have a sig- nificant tendency to be high-functioning and to have atypical age of ASD manifestation. Episodic features including reality distortion, which can be seen in in- dividual with ASD, may be associated with hyper- arousal conditions