Impaired reward responsiveness in schizophrenia

Anhedonia is a core negative symptom of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia patients report largely intact pleasure in consuming rewards, but have impairments in generating motivated behavior to pursue rewards, and show reduced fMRI activation of the reward pathway during presentation of rewarded stimuli. A computer based task measuring the development of a response bias in favor of rewarded stimuli permits assessment of reward-induced motivation. We hypothesized that subjects with schizophrenia would be impaired on this task.

Source: Schizophrenia Research - March 8, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Nicholas Taylor, Jeffrey P. Hollis, Sarah Corcoran, Robin Gross, Bruce Cuthbert, Lisette W. Swails, Erica Duncan Source Type: research