Childhood attention issues may signal psychosis risk later [Video]

Children suffering attention problems may be at risk of developing psychotic-like experiences in adulthood, finds a study on Monday.

Psychosis is a mental condition that causes a person to lose touch with reality.

According to researchers from the University of California – Los Angeles, who analysed data from about 10,000 children for over six years, besides genetic makeup, attentional variability influenced the risk of broader psychotic-like symptoms as children grow into adolescence.

Children with a higher genetic risk for a broad set of neuropsychiatric and cognitive disorders had a greater risk of severe psychotic-like experiences and greater attention issues.

In addition, attention span variability partially acted as an intermediate between the relationships between genetic risk for neuropsychiatric disorders and the expression of psychotic-like symptoms.

Attention span issues explained 4-16 per cent of these associations, revealed the findings, published in Nature Mental Health.

“If attention completely explained the relationship between genetic predisposition and psychotic-like …