title: Examining associations between psychosis risk, social anhedonia, and performance of striatum-related behavioral tasks.
abstract: Both psychosis and anhedonia have been associated to some extent with striatal functioning. The current study examined whether either psychosis risk or social anhedonia was associated with performance on 3 tasks related to striatal functioning. Psychosis risk participants had extremely elevated Perceptual Aberration/Magical Ideation (PerMag) scores (n = 69), with 43% of psychosis risk participants also having semistructured interview-assessed psychotic-like experiences which further heightens their risk of psychotic disorder (Chapman, Chapman, Kwapil, Eckblad, & Zinser, 1994). Compared with both extremely elevated social anhedonia (n = 60) and control (n = 68) groups, the PerMag group exhibited poorer performance on 2 of the striatum-related tasks, the Weather Prediction Task (WPT) and the Learned Irrelevance Paradigm, but not on Finger Tapping. In addition, PerMag participants with psychotic-like experiences were especially impaired on the WPT. Overall, this study arguably provides the first evidence that psychosis risk but not social anhedonia is associated with performance on the WPT, a task thought to be strongly associated with activation in the associative striatum, and also suggests that the WPT might be especially useful as a behavioral measure of psychosis risk.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences.
authors.forename: Nicole R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Karcher
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences.
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences.
authors.forename: John G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Kerns
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D059445:Anhedonia / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011337:Probability Learning; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult