Autistic-Like Traits- Mood Disorders and schizophrenia

Post Reply New Topic

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder often co-occurs with other psychiatric disorders. Although a high prevalence of autistic-like traits/symptoms has been identified in the pediatric psychiatric population of normal intelligence, there are no reports from adult psychiatric population. This study examined whether there is a greater prevalence of autistic-like traits/symptoms in patients with adult-onset psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, and whether such an association is independent of symptom severity. The subjects were 290 adults of normal intelligence between 25 and 59 years of age (MDD, n=125; bipolar disorder, n=56; schizophrenia, n=44; healthy controls, n=65). Autistic-like traits/symptoms were measured using the Social Responsiveness Scale for Adults. Symptom severity was measured using the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, and/or the Young Mania Rating Scale. Almost half of the clinical subjects, except those with remitted MDD, exhibited autistic-like traits/symptoms at levels typical for sub-threshold or threshold autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the proportion of psychiatric patients that demonstrated high autistic-like traits/symptoms was significantly greater than that of healthy controls, and not different between that of remitted or unremitted subjects with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. On the other hand, remitted subjects with MDD did not differ from healthy controls with regard to the prevalence or degree of high autistic-like traits/symptoms. A substantial proportion of adults with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia showed high autistic-like traits/symptoms independent of symptom severity, suggesting a shared pathophysiology among autism spectrum disorder and these psychiatric disorders. Conversely, autistic-like traits among subjects with MDD were associated with the depressive symptom severity. These findings suggest the importance of evaluating autistic-like traits/symptoms underlying adult-onset psychiatric disorders for the best-suited treatment. Further studies with a prospective design and larger samples are needed.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2583 ... t=Abstract

Interesting.

I've heard many who were diagnosed in adulthood say they were originally diagnosed with depression.

On a related note, it seems that among some researchers recently, the concept of schizophrenic autism has been revived:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1489853/

Reading the description, it's pretty different.

I think that abstract describes me pretty well. I've got something wrong with me, and it wasn't there when I was a child.

I probably have always had mild autistic traits, BUT with all this added stress of whatever the f**k my brain's doing to me I notice that I fit a lot of autistic criteria. But only when things don't feel 'right', which is, for the past 6 months or so, 90% of the time.

This doesn't surprise me. I self-diagnosed as autistic before I started having psychotic symptoms. I think that my current diagnosis of schizophreniform is mutually exclusive with autism though.