Anhedonia And The Effort Expenditure For Rewards Task In Schizophrenia

Objective Anhedonia, or loss of interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities, is aprominent symptom of many neuropsychiatric disorders, most notably schizophreniaand major depressive disorder.Whereas anhedonia has traditionally been viewed as adeficit in the experience of pleasure, more recent evidence suggests that reducedanticipation and motivation may also be a core feature of this symptom.Today, how--ever, reward-related deficits experienced by individuals with schizophrenia involvemore than just an absence or loss of pleasure. Anhedonia is a core feature of rewarddeficits.Here, we provide data from a study in schizophrenia patients and healthycontrols using a translational measure of reward motivation, the Effort Expenditure forRewards Task (EEfRT or “effort”).Using the EEfRT, we explore anhedonia in patientswith schizophrenia test the hypothesis that reward motivation is related to traitanhedonia.Methods Twenty-eight patients who met a CCMD-3diagnosis for schizophrenia(recruited from inpatient and outpatient of Mental Health Center of Anhui Province) andthirty-two healthy control group subjects matched for age, gender, education wereassessed by the MMSE, the BDI and a anhedonia trait test Temporal Experience ofPleasure Scale(including anticipatory and consummatory anhedonia),Positive andNegative Syndrome Scale and then participated in the Effort Expenditure for RewardsTask on the computer.This task offers subjects a series of trials where they may chooseto expend more or less effort for the opportunity to win varying amounts of monetaryrewards.Records were different reward probability of the choice involving inhigh-cost-high-reward。Using the EEfRT, we test the hypothesis that effort-based decision-making is related to trait anhedonia.Results the normal control group and schizophrenia patients were significantly on theBeck Depression Inventory, Temporal and Experience of Pleasure Scale.(t=7.141,2.384，P<0.05Two groups in the high probability (88%) and mediumprobability (50%) for proportion of hard-task choice independent sample t-testsignificant difference (t=7.141,2.384, P <0.05), and in low probability (12%) leveltwo groups for proportion of hard-task choices no significance. Across all subjects,proportions of hard-task choices for medium and higher probability trials weresignificantly correlated with the score on the BDI and anticipatory anhedonia. P<0.05.Conclusion These findings suggest that schizophrenia patients with significantanticipatory and consummatory anhedonia, only anticipatory anhedonia and rewardprocessing motivation decline related...