Social Preference System and Social Cognition in Schizophrenia

描述(由申请人提供)：社会认知障碍--参与适应性人际互动的心理能力--日益被认为是精神分裂症(SZ)的一个关键特征。社会认知障碍在深圳很普遍，并对功能低下和整体生活质量造成很大影响。然而，尽管文献越来越多，但还没有一个总体框架来令人满意地解释SZ在多个社会认知领域(如面部情感识别、心理状态归因)中出现的损害。确定这样的框架将大大提高我们对这种疾病的理解，并可能对开发新的干预措施以改善深圳的社会认知具有价值。以此为长期研究目标，本探索性R21项目聚焦于社会信息加工的一个核心特征--社会偏好系统(SPS)，并将评估SPS中断是否是深圳社会认知障碍的一个可能的潜在因素。社会信息的优先处理被称为社会偏好系统(SPS)。SPS的例子包括：优先关注社交信息而不是非社交信息(即社交导向)，以及寻求和享受社交信息而不是非社交信息(即社会回报)。 当优先处理社会信息时，感知和体验社会刺激并做出适当反应的机会增加，从而发展社会认知技能。与这一观点一致的是，来自基础科学的新证据有力地支持了SPS在社会认知发展中的关键作用。此外，最近发现了与SP相关的独特的神经区。总体而言，SPS障碍是深圳社会认知障碍的合理解释。为了实证检验这种可能性，我们假设SZ患者的SPS中断，这种中断的下游影响是社会认知受损，而非社会认知不受SPS中断的影响。本研究以35名SZ患者和35名健康对照为研究对象，在两年的时间里，采用多模式研究方法(即表现、神经成像和自我报告问卷)，重点考察SZ患者的社会取向和社会回报，并将评估以下科学目的：1)检测SZ患者是否表现出SPS障碍，以及SPS的下游效应是否存在于社会认知而不是非社会认知；以及2)SZ患者是否表现出与SPS相关的异常神经激活。该项目的研究结果可能对确定深圳社会认知障碍的潜在原因很有价值，并可能为我们理解其他精神疾病的社会认知障碍提供见解。在这方面，该项目与NIMH战略计划I目标1：促进大脑和行为科学中的发现，以推动对精神障碍原因的研究以及NIMH研究领域标准(RDoC)项目是一致的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Impairment in social cognition- the mental abilities involved in adaptive interpersonal interactions-is increasingly being recognized as a key feature of schizophrenia (SZ). Social cognitive impairment in SZ is pervasive and contributes significantly to poor functioning and overall quality of life. However, despite a growing body of literature, there is no overarching framework to satisfactorily explain the impairment seen in SZ across multiple social cognitive domains (e.g., facial affect recognition, mental state attribution. Identifying such a framework would substantially improve our understanding of the disease and could be valuable for the development of novel interventions to improve social cognition in SZ. With this as the long-term research goal, this exploratory R21 project focuses on a core feature of social information processing, the social preference system (SPS), and will evaluate whether a disrupted SPS is a plausible underlying factor for social cognitive impairment in SZ. The prioritized processing of social information is referred to as the social preference system (SPS). Examples of the SPS include: preferential orienting to social over nonsocial information (i.e., social orienting) and seeking and enjoying social over nonsocial information (i.e., social reward). When processing social information is prioritized, the opportunity to perceive and experience social stimuli and to respond appropriately increases, thereby developing social cognitive skills. Consistent with this view, emerging evidence from basic science strongly supports the critical role of the SPS in the development of social cognition. Further, unique neural areas associated with the SPS have recently been identified. Overall a disrupted SPS is a plausible explanation of social cognitive impairment in SZ. To empirically examine this possibility, we hypothesize that SZ patients have a disrupted SPS and that the downstream effect of this disruption is impaired social cognition, while nonsocial cognition is not affected by the disrupted SPS. With 35 SZ patients and 35 healthy controls over 2 years, we will employ a multi-modal approach (i.e., performance, neuroimaging and self-report questionnaires) with a focus on social orienting and social reward, and will evaluate the following scientific aims: 1) To examine whether SZ patients show a disrupted SPS and whether the downstream effect of the SPS is present in social cognition but not in nonsocial cognition; and 2) To examine whether SZ patients show aberrant neural activations related to the SPS. The findings of this project could be valuable for determining the underlying causes of social cognitive impairment in SZ and could provide insights into our understanding of social cognitive impairment in other psychiatric illnesses. In this regard, this project is consistent with the NIMH Strategic Plan I Objective 1: Promote Discovery in the Brain and Behavioral Science to Fuel Research on the Causes of Mental Disorders and with the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Project.