Approaches to Studying Social Motivation in Schizophrenia

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Humans are highly social beings that are motivated to seek out, engage in, and maintain interpersonal relationships with others. This fundamental human drive is referred to as social motivation. However, Veterans with schizophrenia often experience disruptions in social motivation, resulting in poor social functioning. Current evidence-based treatments are not sufficiently effective at improving impairments in social motivation in Veterans with schizophrenia. To inform novel treatment development, new experimental approaches are needed that will generate a more complete understanding of this pervasive problem. The current proposal adapts a theoretical framework of social motivation from the National Institutes of Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), which parses social motivation into two major components: social attention and social memory. Social attention refers to the bias to preferentially attend to social aspects of the environment, and involves stages of attention capture and sustained attention. Social memory refers to the ability to remember who we interacted with to establish and maintain relationships, and involves stages of memory encoding and retrieval. It is not clear the stage at which social motivation impairments begin to emerge for Veterans with schizophrenia. Additionally, the relative contribution of these two social motivation components on social functioning is not known. Social functioning in schizophrenia has traditionally been assessed using clinician- rated interviews, which has limited specificity in understanding the complexities of real-world social functioning. The overall goal of this proposal is to elucidate the relative contribution of the two social motivation components (social attention and social memory) and their specific stages of processing on real-world social functioning in Veterans with schizophrenia. The proposal utilizes an innovative multi-modal approach that elucidates stages of processing with electroencephalography (EEG), and real-world social functioning with digital phenotyping via smartphone technology. The results of this study have the potential to advance our understanding of social motivation in schizophrenia and to identify specific treatment targets that will reduce the cost and burden associated with this debilitating disorder at the VA. In addition to addressing the above research goals, this Career Development Award (CDA) will provide the applicant, Lauren T. Catalano, PhD, with the training in the areas of: (1) translational research in the social neuroscience of schizophrenia and social motivation; (2) advanced electroencephalography (EEG) techniques; and (3) digital phenotyping via mobile smartphone technology. The applicant’s career goal is to become a VA- based psychology clinician researcher, working to improve the social disability experienced by Veterans with serious mental illness. The training outlined in this CDA application will lay the groundwork for the applicant to develop an independent research program within the VA focused on social motivation in schizophrenia. The VISN 22 Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (GLA), and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) provides an excellent environment and infrastructure to complete the proposed study. The primary mentor will be Michael F. Green, PhD, the Director of the VISN 22 MIRECC Treatment Unit, Director of the VA Research Enhancement Award Program (REAP) for Enhancing Community Integration in Homeless Veterans, and an established researcher in the field of schizophrenia. The applicant will also receive specialized training from an expert in EEG methodology in Veterans with serious mental illness (Jonathan K. Wynn, PhD), and a leading expert in mobile assessment methodology in Veterans with serious mental illness (Eric L. Granholm, PhD).