Diagnostic specificity and familiality of early versus late evoked potentials to auditory paired stimuli across the schizophrenia-bipolar psychosis spectrum

Disrupted sensory processing is a core feature of psychotic disorders. Auditory paired stimuli (PS) evoke a complex neural response, but it is uncertain which aspects reflect shared and/or distinct liability for the most common severe psychoses, schizophrenia (SZ) and psychotic bipolar disorder (BDP). Evoked time-voltage/time-frequency domain responses quantified with EEG during a typical PS paradigm (S1-S2) were compared among proband groups (SZ [n=232], BDP [181]), their relatives (SZrel [259], BDPrel [220]), and healthy participants (H [228]). Early S1-evoked responses were reduced in SZ and BDP, while later/S2 abnormalities showed SZ/SZrel and BDP/BDPrel specificity. Relatives' effects were absent/small despite significant familiality of the entire auditorineural response. This pattern suggests general and divergent biological pathways associated with psychosis, yet may reflect complications with conditioning solely on clinical phenomenology.