title: Anhedonia in schizophrenia: Deficits in both motivation and hedonic capacity.
abstract: Anhedonia is one of the core negative symptoms of schizophrenia that affect the ultimate outcome of this disorder. It is unclear whether the motivational or the hedonic component of anhedonia is impaired in patients with schizophrenia. This study examined the deficits in motivation and hedonic capacity in patients with schizophrenia using an Effort-based pleasure experience task (E-pet). Twenty-two schizophrenia patients with prominent negative symptoms, 18 schizophrenia patients without prominent negative symptoms and 29 healthy controls participated in the present study. All of them were administered the E-pet task, which required the participants to make decisions on whether to choose a hard or easy task based on probability and reward magnitude. When making the grip effort allocation decision, schizophrenia patients with prominent negative symptoms were significantly less likely to choose a hard task than healthy controls. As the reward magnitude and the estimated reward value increased, unlike healthy controls, schizophrenia patients with prominent negative symptoms did not increase their hard task choices. They were also significantly less likely to choose a hard task than healthy controls in medium and high probability conditions. When anticipating potential rewards, these patients reported significantly less anticipatory pleasure than healthy controls, even when reward probability and magnitude increased. The pleasure experience rating after obtaining the actual reward was positively correlated with two pleasure experience scales in schizophrenia patients. In conclusion, patients with schizophrenia, especially those with prominent negative symptoms, showed deficits in both reward motivation and anticipatory pleasure experience.
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China; The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jiao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China. Electronic address: huangj@psych.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China; College of Business, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China.
authors.forename: Xin-Hua
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China; Castle Peak Hospital, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.
authors.forename: Simon S Y
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Lui
authors.affiliation: Castle Peak Hospital, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.
authors.forename: Eric F C
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Raymond C K
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D059445:Anhedonia; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012201:Reward; D012559:Schizophrenia; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology
keywords: Anhedonia; Effort; Motivation; Negative symptoms; Schizophrenia