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The Interaction of Seasonality, Place of Birth, Genetic Risk and Subsequent Schizophrenia in a High Risk Sample

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Ricardo A. Machón ,
Sarnoff A. Mednick  and
Fini Schulsinger
Ricardo A. Machón
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California, DRB 101, University Park-MC 1111, Los Angeles, California 90089–1111 USA
Sarnoff A. Mednick
Affiliation:
Psykologisk Institut, Kommunehospitalet, 1399 Copenhagen Department of Psychology and Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Fini Schulsinger
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Kommunehospitalet, 1399 Copenhagen, Denmark
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Summary

Births occurring in winter months, which are high viral infection months, have been repeatedly shown to produce a slight excess of later-diagnosed schizophrenics. As a result, some researchers have speculated on the possible aetiological effect of viral infections on some forms of schizophrenia. The implications of the viral hypothesis were indirectly tested in the context of an ongoing prospective study of Danish children at high-risk (HR) for schizophrenia. A third-order analysis of variance interaction was hypothesized. Genetically vulnerable individuals, born in winter, in an urban environment (which increases the likelihood of the presence and transmission of viruses) would be more likely, as foetuses or neonates, to have suffered some CNS damage due to the infection; thus they would show higher rates of schizophrenia diagnoses. This hypothesis was supported. The rate of schizophrenia in the HR-urban-winter birth condition reached 23.3 per cent, considerably above population base rates (1 per cent) or rates for the HR subjects (8.9 per cent). Alternative explanations for the results were explored.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 143 , Issue 4 , October 1983 , pp. 383 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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