Determining the Association Between Dermatoglyphics and Schizophrenia by Using Fingerprint Asymmetry Measures

Abstract

Early detection and intervention strategies for schizophrenia are receiving increasingly more attention. Dermatoglyphic patterns, such as the degree of asymmetry of the fingerprints, have been hypothesized to be indirect measures for early abnormal developmental processes that can lead to later psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. However, previous results have been inconsistent in trying to establish the association between dermatoglyphics and schizophrenia. The goal of this work is to try to resolve this problem by borrowing well-developed techniques from the field of fingerprint matching. Two dermatoglyphic asymmetry measures are proposed that draw on the orientation field of homologous fingers. To test the capability of these measures, fingerprint images were acquired digitally from 40 schizophrenic patients and 51 normal individuals. Based on these images, no statistically significant association between conventional dermatoglyphic asymmetry measures and schizophrenia was found. In contrast, the sample means of the proposed measures consistently identified the patient group as having a higher degree of asymmetry than the control group. These results suggest that the proposed measures are promising for detecting the dermatoglyphic patterns that can differentiate the patient and control groups.

Fluctuating Asymmetry of Human Populations: A Review

“…Wang et al [85] have introduced a new approach to dermatoglyphic asymmetry that resembles landmark methods of geometric morphometrics, but without landmarks. It compares the ridge orientation fields of homologous fingers on right and left hands.…”

Dermatoglyphics – a Possible Biomarker in the Neurodevelopmental Model for the Origin of Mental Disorders

“…The majority of published data on fi nger dermatoglyphics in mental disorders comprise comparisons between patients with schizophrenia and mentally healthy controls. 16,17 Research on dermatoglyphics in bipolar disorder is scanty, although the two disorders share some common clinical and epidemiological features. Some authors have found a reduced frequency of whorls and an increase of loops in male patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy men.…”

Rotated Wavelet Filters-Based Fingerprint Recognition

“…15À17 Biometrics is formed from the person's selected unique physical attributes which may be applied for the purpose of automated personal identi¯cation. 32,41 Typically, biometrics are based on features such as¯ngerprints, geometry of hand and vein patterns, iris or retinal patterns, image of a face, and characteristic features of the person's voice. Among all the biometric indicators, 40¯n gerprints have one of the highest levels of reliability 3 and have been extensively used by forensic experts in criminal investigations.…”