Autonomic functioning in process and reactive schizophrenia.

Compared the autonomic functioning of male process schizophrenics, reactive schizophrenics, and normal ss (n = 30) under rest and arousal conditions. Ss were exposed to 6 arousal conditions: (a) white noise, (b) electric shock, (c) paired associate learning, (d) word activity test, (e) finger dexterity task, and (f) pursuit rotor task. Rest periods preceded each arousal condition. Heart rate, skin resistance, respiration rate, diastolic and systolic blood pressures were recorded under all 6 conditions. Results show that under stress the levels of physiological functioning for normal ss and reactive schizophrenics were similar on skin resistance and blood pressure, with process schizophrenics showing a higher level of arousal on skin resistance and a lower level on blood pressure. Reactive schizophrenics had the fastest heart rate, with process schizophrenics next, and normals the lowest. Respiration did not reliably differentiate among the groups. Reactive schizophrenics and normals generally showed greater increments to the arousal conditions (compared with prestress base lines) than the process schizophrenics in all measures except heart rate and skin resistance. In those 2 measures, reactive and process schizophrenics were similar in their reactions to the stress conditons, and both groups showed less reactivity in general than normals. (french summary) (31 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)