Electrophysiological Correlates of Anhedonia in Schizophrenia

描述（由申请人提供）：快感缺乏，即体验愉快情绪的能力减弱，是精神分裂症的一种常见的、难治性阴性症状，与该疾病特征性的社会功能严重受损相关。最近的研究对这种情绪困扰的确切性质提出了根本性的问题。由享乐体验的神经行为模型提供信息，该建议检验了精神分裂症的特征在于食欲愉悦受损（来自预期愉快的体验或“想要”）但完整的消费性愉悦（在从事愉快的活动或“喜欢”时体验）的假设。稳定的精神分裂症门诊患者和健康对照组将完成特质食欲和完善的快乐，以及两个电生理学范式，已被用来探讨这些方面的享乐经验的基础情感科学文献的自我报告问卷。将用情绪预期范式评估食欲愉悦，以检验以下假设：精神分裂症患者在预期愉快的视觉刺激期间将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期间SPN的水平相当。将使用情感图片观看范例来评估消费快乐，以检验以下假设：精神分裂症患者将在直接暴露于愉快和中性视觉刺激期间表现出与对照相当的P300和晚期正电位，但在直接暴露于不愉快刺激期间表现出比对照更大的P300和晚期正电位。这项初步研究将为更全面地评估精神分裂症患者快感缺乏和其他阴性症状的神经生理学基础奠定基础。快感缺乏和其他阴性症状与精神分裂症的独立生活、职业功能和社会关系的严重损害有关。因此，开发新的治疗快感缺乏症的方法具有特别的公共卫生意义，但这种努力目前受到对其确切性质和生理机制的不充分理解的阻碍。拟议的研究将有助于指导开发更有效的治疗方法，通过使用电生理学方法来评估精神分裂症的快感缺乏是否主要反映了食欲或享乐体验的完善成分的损害。

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.