The temporal stability of electrodermal variables over a one‐year period in patients with recent‐onset schizophrenia and in normal subjects

Abstract

Test-retest stability of electrodermal (EDA) variables indexing both general autonomic arousal (e.g., skin conductance level, number of nonspecific skin conductance responses) and attention to external stimuli (e.g., number of skin conductance orienting responses, electrodermal responder/nonresponder status) was assessed in 71 young, recent-onset schizophrenia patients and 36 demographically matched normal subjects. Significant stability over a 1-year period was found for both patients and normal subjects for most EDA variables and for responder/nonresponder status, with test-retest correlations generally being higher for normal subjects. The lower reliability for patients was not attributable to symptomatic fluctuations during the follow-up period and may reflect poorer arousal regulation among the patients. Among measures of responding to nontask stimuli, a simple count of the number of orienting responses occurring was more stable than was a traditional trials-to-habituation measure.

Stop Making Noise! Auditory Sensitivity in Adults with an Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis: Physiological Habituation and Subjective Detection Thresholds

“…However, their AQ and SRS-A scores were below the cut-off scores for possible ASD and, therefore, did not require further administration of the ADOS. Also, in our study, about 21% of the ASD group and 13% of the TD group were non-responders to our habituation task, which is similar to what has been reported in earlier studies (e.g., Ikezawa et al 2012; Schell et al 2002; Schoen et al 2008). We found that the ASD non-responders showed more ASD symptoms on the ADOS than our ASD responders.…”

The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: connecting physiology and cognition to preferences

“…The ultimate source of physiological and cognitive predisposition is still to be determined (our results say little about ultimate sources), but is almost certainly a combination of genetics, early developmental experiences and more immediate environmental events. Physiological, neurological and cognitive patterns, for example, are known to be relatively stable over time [54] but hardly immutable [55]. What is suggested by our results is that for many, but certainly not all, of those individuals professing ideological convictions, their political beliefs have become biologically instantiated in a fashion that renders them sticky and slow to change-somewhere between wholly static and completely malleable.…”

Sensory Adapted Dental Environments to Enhance Oral Care for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study

“…EDA was recorded continuously throughout the dental cleaning as well as for three minutes prior to the cleaning by placing pre-gelled electrodes on the index and middle fingertips of the child's non-dominant hand. In longer-lasting situations, such as a dental cleaning, measurement of tonic skin conductance level (SCL) and frequency of non-specific skin conductance responses (NS-SCRs) are the most useful electrodermal measures (Dawson et al, 2007); these measures exhibit significant test-retest reliability (temporal stability; r ranges from .40 to .85) when measured over a duration of a few days to a year or longer (Dawson et al, 2007; Schell et al, 2002; Schoen et al, 2008). It is well-documented that these tonic EDA readings increase in stressful or painful situations (Dawson et al, 2007).…”