[Insert Figure 1 here]
Because psychiatric populations are difficult to access, recruit and
retain in research studies we must leverage all data points including
findings from the subclinical population. We subscribe to the view that
the general population falls along a spectrum of schizotypal symptoms
(theoretical review in (Grant et al., 2018); see Figure 2 for
illustration). People with more symptoms, but within neurotypical range,
are referred to as having ‘high schizotypy’. First degree relatives of
those with schizophrenia typically have high schizotypy ratings, and are
considered to be at high clinical risk (Kalmady et al., 2020; Le et al.,
2020). As noted, studies in first degree relatives and in neurotypical
individuals with high schizotypy scores avoid complications and
confounds such as medication type, dosage, duration, and mental health
comorbidities. An important challenge in subclinical populations
is that any biomarker would be weaker. We began our review by searching
specific sensory and working memory terms in PubMed and counting the
number of studies identified; see Table 1. We then summarize the reports
of abnormal auditory and visual SM in SSD and turn to WM before
discussing whether empirically derived biomarkers can serve as
indicators of clinical remediation.