Maternal separation results in schizotypal symptoms later in life

MedWire News: Children who are separated from their mothers for 4 weeks or more show an elevated incidence of schizotypal symptoms in later life, especially when separation occurred in the first 2 years of life, a study shows.

In addition, separated children reported to show early angry emotional behavior were more likely to manifest schizotypal symptoms later in life than other children, thereby supporting "the role of early childhood psychosocial risk factors in the development of subsequent schizophrenia spectrum symptoms in emotionally vulnerable children," the researchers say.

A growing number of studies have demonstrated the importance of early childhood experiences in the development of psychosis and schizophrenia in adulthood, Deidre Anglin (Columbia University, New York, USA) and colleagues note.

Attachment theory emphasizes the crucial and formative role of early life experiences, especially during the first 2 years of life, for social and emotional development.

"Through repeated transactions with familiar attachment figures, infants form internal working models, which include affective and cognitive mental representations of expectations about the behavior of self and other," Anglin et al note in the journal Schizophrenia Research.

For the present study, the researchers reviewed data from an epidemiologic cohort of children randomly sampled at an average age of 5 years from families living in upstate New York in 1975.

The children were assessed for axis I and schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) symptoms at a mean age of 13.7 years and again at mean ages of 16.4, 22.4, and 33.2 years. A combination of maternal and child-report items were employed in earlier reports.

Participants who were separated from their mothers for at least a month during the first 5 years of life exhibited a significant increase in average SPD symptoms (b=2.03, SE=1.05).

Further analyses indicated that this effect was largely attributable to separations in the first 2 years of life, especially if the child displayed angry temperament.

Anglin et al speculate that the first 2 years may be a "critical period" in a child's psychologic development, adding that "more attention should focus on early psychologic experiences that may put both genetically vulnerable offspring and perhaps also those without clear genetic vulnerability at risk."