Electrophysiological Correlates of Anhedonia in Schizophrenia

描述（由申请人提供）：快感缺乏症，即体验愉悦情绪的能力减弱，是精神分裂症的一种常见的难治性阴性症状，与该疾病特征的社会功能严重受损有关。最近的研究对这种情绪障碍的确切性质提出了根本性的问题。根据享乐体验的神经行为模型，这一提议检验了这样一种假设，即精神分裂症的特征是食欲愉悦（来自于预期愉快的体验或“想要”）受损，但完成全性愉悦（在参与愉快的活动或“喜欢”时体验到）完整。稳定的精神分裂症门诊患者和健康对照者将完成特质食欲愉悦和圆满愉悦的自我报告问卷，以及基础情感科学文献中用于探索这些享乐体验方面的两种电生理范式。食欲愉悦将通过情绪预期范式进行评估，以检验精神分裂症患者在预期愉快的视觉刺激时表现出比健康对照组更少的刺激前负性（SPN），但在预期中性和不愉快的刺激时表现出相当水平的SPN。完成性愉悦将使用情感图片观看范式进行评估，以检验精神分裂症患者在直接暴露于愉快和中性视觉刺激时表现出与对照组相当的P300和晚期正电位，但在直接暴露于不愉快刺激时表现出比对照组更高的P300和晚期正电位的假设。这项初步研究将为更全面地评估精神分裂症中快感缺乏和其他阴性症状的神经生理学基础提供基础。快感缺乏和其他阴性症状与精神分裂症特有的独立生活、职业功能和社会关系的严重损害有关。因此，开发治疗快感缺乏症的新方法具有特殊的公共卫生意义，但这种努力目前受到对其确切性质和生理机制了解不足的阻碍。这项研究将有助于指导更有效的治疗方法的发展，通过使用电生理方法来评估精神分裂症中的快感缺乏主要反映的是享乐体验的食欲成分还是圆满成分的损害。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Anhedonia, the diminished ability to experience pleasant emotions, is a common, treatment-resistant negative symptom of schizophrenia that is associated with the profound impairments in social functioning that characterize this disorder. Recent research has raised fundamental questions about the precise nature of this emotional disturbance. Informed by a neurobehavioral model of hedonic experience, this proposal examines the hypothesis that schizophrenia is characterized by impaired appetitive pleasure (derived from anticipating enjoyable experiences or "wanting") but intact consummatory pleasure (experienced while engaged in enjoyable activities or "liking"). Stabilized schizophrenia outpatients and healthy control subjects will complete self-report questionnaires of trait appetitive and consummatory pleasure, as well as two electrophysiological paradigms that have been used to probe these aspects of hedonic experience in the basic affective science literature. Appetitive pleasure will be assessed with an emotional anticipation paradigm to examine the hypothesis that schizophrenia patients will demonstrate less Stimulus-Preceding Negativity (SPN) than healthy controls during the anticipation of pleasant visual stimuli, but comparable levels of SPN during anticipation of neutral and unpleasant stimuli. Consummatory pleasure will be assessed using an affective picture-viewing paradigm to examine the hypothesis that schizophrenia patients will demonstrate P300 and late positive potentials that are comparable to controls during direct exposure to pleasant and neutral visual stimuli, but greater P300 and late positive potentials than controls during direct exposure to unpleasant stimuli. This initial study will provide the groundwork for conducting more comprehensive evaluations of the neurophysiological underpinnings of anhedonia and other negative symptoms in schizophrenia. Anhedonia and other negative symptoms are associated with the profound impairments in independent living, vocational functioning, and social relationships that characterize schizophrenia. The development of novel treatments for anhedonia are therefore of particular public health significance, but such efforts are currently hampered by an inadequate understanding of its precise nature and physiological mechanisms. The proposed research will help guide the development of more effective treatments by using electrophysiological methods to evaluate whether anhedonia in schizophrenia primarily reflects impairment in the appetitive or the consummatory component of hedonic experience.