Reward-driven decision-making impairments in schizophrenia

Abnormal hedonic process in patients with stable schizophrenia: Relationships to negative symptoms and social functioning

Background

Anhedonia is a deficit of dynamic reward process, and a large proportion of schizophrenia patients continue to experience anhedonia even during the stable phase. However, few studies have examined the multiple aspects of performance in reward processing in patients with stable schizophrenia and evidence suggests that physical and cognitive effort may involve different neural mechanisms.

Methods

Parallel measures of effort-based expenditure for reward tasks (EEfRT) and self-report questionnaires of pleasure were applied in 61 patients with stable schizophrenia (SSZ) and 46 healthy controls (HCs), and percentages of hard task choices (HTC%) were used to assess motivation in reward processing. Negative symptoms, neurocognitive and social function were evaluated in SSZ patients, and associations with performance in reward tasks were explored.

Results

SSZ patients reported more severe consummatory and anticipatory anhedonia and social anhedonia. HTC% in reward tasks of SSZ patients were significantly lower than that of HCs, especially in cognitive-effort tasks. HTC% in cognitive tasks were correlated with motivation and pleasure dimension of negative symptoms, whereas HTC% in physical tasks were associated with expression dimension. Anticipatory anhedonia and negative symptoms were correlated with Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP) scores.

Conclusion

Patients with stable schizophrenia have social anhedonia, physically consummatory and anticipatory anhedonia and reduced reward motivation. They are less willing to make cognitive effort than physical effort for reward. The different associations of physical and cognitive effort with negative symptoms indicate physical and cognitive effort may represent disparate neuropsychological processes. Anticipatory anhedonia is closely related to social functioning.

What Remains to Be Discovered in Schizophrenia Therapeutics: Contributions by Advancing the Molecular Mechanisms of Drugs for Psychosis and Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a frequently debilitating and complex mental disorder affecting approximately 1% of the global population, characterized by symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thoughts and behaviors, cognitive dysfunction, and negative symptoms. Traditional treatment has centered on postsynaptic dopamine antagonists, commonly known as antipsychotic drugs, which aim to alleviate symptoms and improve functioning and the quality of life. Despite the availability of these medications, significant challenges remain in schizophrenia therapeutics, including incomplete symptom relief, treatment resistance, and medication side effects. This opinion article explores advancements in schizophrenia treatment, emphasizing molecular mechanisms, novel drug targets, and innovative delivery methods. One promising approach is novel strategies that target neural networks and circuits rather than single neurotransmitters, acknowledging the complexity of brain region interconnections involved in schizophrenia. Another promising approach is the development of biased agonists, which selectively activate specific signaling pathways downstream of receptors, offering potential for more precise pharmacological interventions with fewer side effects. The concept of molecular polypharmacy, where a single drug targets multiple molecular pathways, is exemplified by KarXT, a novel drug combining xanomeline and trospium to address both psychosis and cognitive dysfunction. This approach represents a comprehensive strategy for schizophrenia treatment, potentially improving outcomes for patients. In conclusion, advancing the molecular understanding of schizophrenia and exploring innovative therapeutic strategies hold promise for addressing the unmet needs in schizophrenia treatment, aiming for more effective and tailored interventions. Future research should focus on these novel approaches to achieve better clinical outcomes and improve the functional level and quality of life for individuals with schizophrenia.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Reward Anticipation in Subjects with Schizophrenia: An ERP Microstate Study

The current study aimed to investigate alterations of event-related potentials (ERPs) microstate during reward anticipation in subjects with schizophrenia (SCZ), and their association with hedonic experience and negative symptoms. EEG data were recorded in thirty SCZ and twenty-three healthy controls (HC) during the monetary incentive delay task in which reward, loss and neutral cues were presented. Microstate analysis and standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) were applied to EEG data. Furthermore, analyses correlating a topographic index (the ERPs score), calculated to quantify brain activation in relationship to the microstate maps, and scales assessing hedonic experience and negative symptoms were performed. Alterations in the first (125.0-187.5 ms) and second (261.7-414.1 ms) anticipatory cue-related microstate classes were observed. In SCZ, reward cues were associated to shorter duration and earlier offset of the first microstate class as compared to the neutral condition. In the second microstate class, the area under the curve was smaller for both reward and loss anticipation cues in SCZ as compared to HC. Furthermore, significant correlations between ERPs scores and the anticipation of pleasure scores were detected, while no significant association was found with negative symptoms. sLORETA analysis showed that hypo-activation of the cingulate cortex, insula, orbitofrontal and parietal cortex was detected in SCZ as compared to HC. Abnormalities in ERPs could be traced already during the early stages of reward processing and were associated with the anticipation of pleasure, suggesting that these dysfunctions might impair effective evaluation of incoming pleasant experiences. Negative symptoms and anhedonia are partially independent results.

Maternal selenium dietary supplementation alters sociability and reinforcement learning deficits induced by in utero exposure to maternal immune activation in mice

Maternal immune activation (MIA) during pregnancy increases the risk for the unborn foetus to develop neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia later in life. MIA mouse models recapitulate behavioural and biological phenotypes relevant to both conditions, and are valuable models to test novel treatment approaches. Selenium (Se) has potent anti-inflammatory properties suggesting it may be an effective prophylactic treatment against MIA. The aim of this study was to determine if Se supplementation during pregnancy can prevent adverse effects of MIA on offspring brain and behaviour in a mouse model. Selenium was administered via drinking water (1.5 ppm) to pregnant dams from gestational day (GD) 9 to birth, and MIA was induced at GD17 using polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly-I:C, 20 mg/kg via intraperitoneal injection). Foetal placenta and brain cytokine levels were assessed using a Luminex assay and brain elemental nutrients assessed using inductively coupled plasma- mass spectrometry. Adult offspring were behaviourally assessed using a reinforcement learning paradigm, the three-chamber sociability test and the open field test. MIA elevated placental IL-1β and IL-17, and Se supplementation successfully prevented this elevation. MIA caused an increase in foetal brain calcium, which was prevented by Se supplement. MIA caused in offspring a female-specific reduction in sociability, which was recovered by Se, and a male-specific reduction in social memory, which was not recovered by Se. Exposure to poly-I:C or selenium, but not both, reduced performance in the reinforcement learning task. Computational modelling indicated that this was predominantly due to increased exploratory behaviour, rather than reduced rate of learning the location of the food reward. This study demonstrates that while Se may be beneficial in ameliorating sociability deficits caused by MIA, it may have negative effects in other behavioural domains. Caution in the use of Se supplementation during pregnancy is therefore warranted.

Risky decision-making in major depressive disorder: A three-level meta-analysis

Background

Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) are usually observed making inappropriate risky decisions. However, whether and to what extent MDD is associated with impairments in risky decision-making remains unclear. We performed a three-level meta-analysis to explore the relationship between risky decision-making and MDD.

Method

We searched the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and PsycINFO databases up to February 7, 2023, and calculated Hedges' g to demonstrate the difference in risky decision-making between MDD patients and healthy controls (HCs). The moderating effect of sample and task characteristics were also revealed.

Results

Across 73 effect sizes in 39 cross-sectional studies, MDD patients exhibited greater risk-seeking than HCs (Hedges' g = 0.187, p = .030). Furthermore, age (p = .068), region (p = .005), and task type (p < .001) were found to have moderating effects. Specifically, patients preferred risk-seeking over HCs as age increased. European patients showed significantly increased risk-seeking compared to American and Asian patients. Patients in the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) exhibited a notable rise in risk-seeking compared to other tasks, along with an increased risk aversion in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). The multiple-moderator analysis showed that only task type had significant effects, which may be explained by a tentative framework of "operationalization-mechanism-measure" specificity.

Conclusions

MDD patients generally exhibit higher risk-seeking than HCs. It implies that impaired risky decision-making might be a noteworthy symptom of depression, which should be placed more emphasis for clinical management and psycho-education.

Reward Functioning in General and Specific Psychopathology in Children and Adults

OBJECTIVE

Problems with reward processing have been implicated in multiple psychiatric disorders, but psychiatric comorbidities are common and their specificity to individual psychopathologies is unknown. Here, we evaluate the association between reward functioning and general or specific psychopathologies.

METHOD

1,213 adults and their1,531 children (ages 6-12) completed various measures of the Positive Valence System domain from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). Psychopathology was assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist for children and the Adult Self Report for parents.

RESULTS

One general factor identified via principal factors factor analysis explained most variance in psychopathology in both groups. Measures of reward were associated with the general factor and most specific psychopathologies. Certain reward constructs were associated solely with specific psychopathologies but not general psychopathology. However, some prior associations between reward and psychopathology did not hold following removal of comorbidity.

CONCLUSION

Reward dysfunction is significantly associated with both general and specific psychopathologies.

Modeling Effort-Based Decision Making: Individual Differences in Schizophrenia and Major Depressive Disorder

BACKGROUND

A critical facet of motivation is effort-based decision making, which refers to the mental processes involved in deciding whether a potential reward is worth the effort. To advance understanding of how individuals with schizophrenia and major depressive disorder utilize cost-benefit information to guide choice behavior, this study aimed to characterize individual differences in the computations associated with effort-based decision making.

METHODS

One hundred forty-five participants (51 with schizophrenia, 43 with depression, and 51 healthy control participants) completed the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task, with mixed effects modeling conducted to estimate the predictors of decision making. These model-derived, subject-specific coefficients were then clustered using k-means to test for the presence of discrete transdiagnostic subgroups with different profiles of reward, probability, and cost information utilization during effort-based decision making.

RESULTS

An optimal 2-cluster solution was identified, with no significant differences in the distribution of diagnostic groups between clusters. Cluster 1 (n = 76) was characterized by overall lower information utilization during decision making than cluster 2 (n = 61). Participants in this low information utilization cluster were also significantly older and more cognitively impaired, and their utilization of reward, probability, and cost was significantly correlated with clinical amotivation, depressive symptoms, and cognitive functioning.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings revealed meaningful individual differences among participants with schizophrenia, depression, and healthy control participants in their utilization of cost-benefit information in the context of effortful decision making. These findings may provide insight into different processes associated with aberrant choice behavior and may potentially guide the identification of more individualized treatment targets for effort-based motivation deficits across disorders.

Sensitivity to intrinsic rewards is domain general and related to mental health

Humans frequently engage in intrinsically rewarding activities (for example, consuming art, reading). Despite such activities seeming diverse, we show that sensitivity to intrinsic rewards is domain general and associated with mental health. In this cross-sectional study, participants online (N = 483) were presented with putative visual, cognitive and social intrinsic rewards as well as monetary rewards and neutral stimuli. All rewards elicited positive feelings (were 'liked'), generated consummatory behaviour (were 'wanted') and increased the likelihood of the action leading to them (were 'reinforcing'). Factor analysis revealed that ~40% of response variance across stimuli was explained by a general sensitivity to all rewards, but not to neutral stimuli. Affective aspects of mental health were associated with sensitivity to intrinsic, but not monetary, rewards. These results may help explain thriving and suffering: individuals with high reward sensitivity will engage in a variety of intrinsically rewarding activities, eventually finding those they excel at, whereas low sensitivity individuals will not.

Link between cognitive polygenic risk scores and clinical progression after a first-psychotic episode

BACKGROUND

Clinical intervention in early stages of psychotic disorders is crucial for the prevention of severe symptomatology trajectories and poor outcomes. Genetic variability is studied as a promising modulator of prognosis, thus novel approaches considering the polygenic nature of these complex phenotypes are required to unravel the mechanisms underlying the early progression of the disorder.

METHODS

The sample comprised of 233 first-episode psychosis (FEP) subjects with clinical and cognitive data assessed periodically for a 2-year period and 150 matched controls. Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, education attainment and cognitive performance were used to assess the genetic risk of FEP and to characterize their association with premorbid, baseline and progression of clinical and cognitive status.

RESULTS

Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and cognitive performance PRSs were associated with an increased risk of FEP [false discovery rate (FDR) ⩽ 0.027]. In FEP patients, increased cognitive PRSs were found for FEP patients with more cognitive reserve (FDR ⩽ 0.037). PRSs reflecting a genetic liability for improved cognition were associated with a better course of symptoms, functionality and working memory (FDR ⩽ 0.039). Moreover, the PRS of depression was associated with a worse trajectory of the executive function and the general cognitive status (FDR ⩽ 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Our study provides novel evidence of the polygenic bases of psychosis and its clinical manifestation in its first stage. The consistent effect of cognitive PRSs on the early clinical progression suggests that the mechanisms underlying the psychotic episode and its severity could be partially independent.

Intranasal Oxytocin Modulates Decision-Making Depending on Outcome Predictability-A Randomized Within-Subject Controlled Trial in Healthy Males

Oxytocin (OT) has been extensively studied with regard to its socio-cognitive and -behavioral effects. Its potential as a therapeutic agent is being discussed for a range of neuropsychiatric conditions. However, there is limited evidence of its effects on non-social cognition in general and decision-making in particular, despite the importance of these functions in neuropsychiatry. Using a crossover/within-subject, blinded, randomized design, we investigated for the first time if intranasal OT (24 IU) affects decision-making differently depending on outcome predictability/ambiguity in healthy males. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Cambridge Risk Task (CRT) were used to assess decision-making under low outcome predictability/high ambiguity and under high outcome probability/low ambiguity, respectively. After administration of OT, subjects performed worse and exhibited riskier performance in the IGT (low outcome predictability/high ambiguity), whereas they made borderline-significant less risky decisions in the CRT (high outcome probability/low ambiguity) as compared to the control condition. Decision-making in healthy males may therefore be influenced by OT and adjusted as a function of contextual information, with implications for clinical trials investigating OT in neuropsychiatric conditions.

Computational reinforcement learning, reward (and punishment), and dopamine in psychiatric disorders

In the DSM-5, psychiatric diagnoses are made based on self-reported symptoms and clinician-identified signs. Though helpful in choosing potential interventions based on the available regimens, this conceptualization of psychiatric diseases can limit basic science investigation into their underlying causes. The reward prediction error (RPE) hypothesis of dopamine neuron function posits that phasic dopamine signals encode the difference between the rewards a person expects and experiences. The computational framework from which this hypothesis was derived, temporal difference reinforcement learning (TDRL), is largely focused on reward processing rather than punishment learning. Many psychiatric disorders are characterized by aberrant behaviors, expectations, reward processing, and hypothesized dopaminergic signaling, but also characterized by suffering and the inability to change one's behavior despite negative consequences. In this review, we provide an overview of the RPE theory of phasic dopamine neuron activity and review the gains that have been made through the use of computational reinforcement learning theory as a framework for understanding changes in reward processing. The relative dearth of explicit accounts of punishment learning in computational reinforcement learning theory and its application in neuroscience is highlighted as a significant gap in current computational psychiatric research. Four disorders comprise the main focus of this review: two disorders of traditionally hypothesized hyperdopaminergic function, addiction and schizophrenia, followed by two disorders of traditionally hypothesized hypodopaminergic function, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Insights gained from a reward processing based reinforcement learning framework about underlying dopaminergic mechanisms and the role of punishment learning (when available) are explored in each disorder. Concluding remarks focus on the future directions required to characterize neuropsychiatric disorders with a hypothesized cause of underlying dopaminergic transmission.

Neural Circuitry of Salience and Reward Processing in Psychosis

The processing of salient and rewarding stimuli is integral to engaging our attention, stimulating anticipation for future events, and driving goal-directed behaviors. Widespread impairments in these processes are observed in psychosis, which may be associated with worse functional outcomes or mechanistically linked to the development of symptoms. Here, we summarize the current knowledge of behavioral and functional neuroimaging in salience, prediction error, and reward. Although each is a specific process, they are situated in multiple feedback and feedforward systems integral to decision making and cognition more generally. We argue that the origin of salience and reward processing dysfunctions may be centered in the subcortex during the earliest stages of psychosis, with cortical abnormalities being initially more spared but becoming more prominent in established psychotic illness/schizophrenia. The neural circuits underpinning salience and reward processing may provide targets for delaying or preventing progressive behavioral and neurobiological decline.

The Prominent Deck B Phenomenon in Schizophrenia: An Empirical Study on Iowa Gambling Task

Background: The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) was established to evaluate emotion-based decision-making ability under uncertain circumstances in clinical populations, including schizophrenia (Sz). However, there remains a lack of stable behavioral measures regarding discrimination for decision-making performance in IGT between schizophrenic cases and healthy participants. None of the Sz-IGT studies has specifically verified the prominent deck B (PDB) phenomenon gradually revealed in other populations. Here, we provided a global review and empirical study to verify these Sz-IGT issues. Methods: Seeking reliable and valid behavioral measures, we reviewed 38 studies using IGT to investigate decision-making behavior in Sz groups. The IGT, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and clinical symptoms evaluations were administered to 61 schizophrenia or schizoaffective cases diagnosed by psychiatrists and 62 demographically matched healthy participants. Results: There were no valid behavioral measures in IGT that could significantly identify the decision-making dysfunction of Sz. However, Sz cases, on average, made more choices from disadvantageous deck B relative to other decks, particularly in the later learning process (block 3-5). Compared to the control group, the Sz group was more impaired on the WCST. The high-gain frequency decks B and D showed significant correlations with WCST but no correlation between clinical symptoms and IGT/WCST. Conclusions: Gain-loss frequency (GLF) has a dominant and stable impact on the decision-making process in both Sz and control groups. PDB phenomenon is essentially challenging to be observed on the ground of the expected value (EV) viewpoint approach on the IGT in both populations. Consequently, caution should be exercised when launching the IGT to assess the decision-making ability of Sz under a clinical scenario.

Decision making under ambiguity and risk in adolescent-onset schizophrenia

OBJECTIVE

Numerous studies have identified impaired decision making (DM) under both ambiguity and risk in adult patients with schizophrenia. However, the assessment of DM in patients with adolescent-onset schizophrenia (AOS) has been challenging as a result of the instability and heterogeneity of manifestations. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and Game of Dice Task (GDT), which are frequently used to evaluate DM respectively under ambiguity and risk, are sensitive to adolescents and neuropsychiatric patients. Our research intended to examine the performance of DM in a relatively large sample of patients with AOS using the above-mentioned two tasks. We also aimed to take a closer look at the relationship between DM and symptom severity of schizophrenia.

METHODS

We compared the performance of DM in 71 patients with AOS and 53 well-matched healthy controls using IGT for DM under ambiguity and GDT for DM under risk through net scores, total scores and feedback ration. Neuropsychological tests were conducted in all participants. Clinical symptoms were evaluated by using Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) in 71 patients with AOS. Pearson's correlation revealed the relationship among total score of DM and clinical and neuropsychological data.

RESULTS

Compared to healthy controls, patients with AOS failed to show learning effect and had a significant difference on the 5th block in IGT and conducted more disadvantageous choices as well as exhibited worse negative feedback rate in GDT. Apart from DM impairment under risk, diminished DM abilities under ambiguity were found related to poor executive function in AOS in the present study.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings unveiled the abnormal pattern of DM in AOS, mainly reflected under the risky condition, extending the knowledge on the performance of DM under ambiguity and risk in AOS. Inefficient DM under risk may account for the lagging impulse control and the combined effects of developmental disease. In addition, our study demonstrated that the performance on IGT was related to executive function in AOS.

Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation (iTBS) as an Optimal Treatment for Schizophrenia Risk Decision: an ERSP Study

Objective: People with schizophrenia have serious impairments in social function, especially in decision-making ability. Transcranial magnetic stimulation modified intermittent theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (iTBS) has been shown to regulate the functional connection of brain networks. Our study explored the therapeutic effect of iTBS on decision-making disorders in schizophrenia. Methods: Participants were pseudorandomized and assigned to iTBS (n = 16) or sham (n = 16) group. iTBS group was administered 1,800 pulses on the target of the left dorsol lateral prefrontal cortex (L-DLPFC) per day for 14 consecutive days. We compared Iowa gambling task performance and associated event-related spectral perturbation results (ERSP) among two groups. Results: The results show that participants' performance in the high-lose in the iTBS group had stronger stimulation of theta spectral power than those in the sham group. Specifically, we found that under high-risk conditions, compared with the control group, the iTBS group showed significant activation of the theta spectrum power in the FPZ, FZ, FCZ, and CZ regions after treatment. Conclusions: Our results provide evidence that long-term iTBS stimulation effectively improves the decision-making ability of schizophrenia. After receiving negative feedback, patients can turn to safety options. These findings support that iTBS may be a potential treatment for clinical decision-making disorders.

Disruption of Nrxn1α within excitatory forebrain circuits drives value-based dysfunction

Goal-directed behaviors are essential for normal function and significantly impaired in neuropsychiatric disorders. Despite extensive associations between genetic mutations and these disorders, the molecular contributions to goal-directed dysfunction remain unclear. We examined mice with constitutive and brain region-specific mutations in Neurexin1α, a neuropsychiatric disease-associated synaptic molecule, in value-based choice paradigms. We found Neurexin1α knockouts exhibited reduced selection of beneficial outcomes and impaired avoidance of costlier options. Reinforcement modeling suggested that this was driven by deficits in updating and representation of value. Disruption of Neurexin1α within telencephalic excitatory projection neurons, but not thalamic neurons, recapitulated choice abnormalities of global Neurexin1α knockouts. Furthermore, this selective forebrain excitatory knockout of Neurexin1α perturbed value-modulated neural signals within striatum, a central node in feedback-based reinforcement learning. By relating deficits in value-based decision-making to region-specific Nrxn1α disruption and changes in value-modulated neural activity, we reveal potential neural substrates for the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disease-associated cognitive dysfunction.

Reward-Processing Behavior in Depressed Participants Relative to Healthy Volunteers: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

IMPORTANCE

Dysfunctional reward processing is a leading candidate mechanism for the development of certain depressive symptoms, such as anhedonia. However, to our knowledge, there has not yet been a systematic assessment of whether and to what extent depression is associated with impairments on behavioral reward-processing tasks.

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether depression is associated with impairments in reward-processing behavior.

DATA SOURCES

The MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, and PsycInfo databases were searched for studies that investigated reward processing using performance on behavioral tasks by individuals with depression and nondepressed control groups, published between January 1, 1946, and August 16, 2019.

STUDY SELECTION

Studies that contained data regarding performance by depressed and healthy control groups on reward-processing tasks were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis.

DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS

Summary statistics comparing performance between depressed and healthy groups on reward-processing tasks were converted to standardized mean difference (SMD) scores, from which summary effect sizes for overall impairment in reward processing and 4 subcomponent categories were calculated. Study quality, heterogeneity, replicability-index, and publication bias were also assessed.

MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES

Performance on reward-processing tasks.

RESULTS

The final data set comprised 48 case-control studies (1387 healthy control individuals and 1767 individuals with major depressive disorder). The mean age was 37.85 years and 58% of the participants were women. These studies used tasks assessing option valuation (n = 9), reward bias (n = 6), reward response vigor (n = 12), reinforcement learning (n = 20), and grip force (n = 1). Across all tasks, depression was associated with small to medium impairments in reward-processing behavior (SMD = 0.345; 95% CI, 0.209-0.480). When examining reward-processing subcomponent categories, impairment was associated with tasks assessing option valuation (SMD = 0.309; 95% CI, 0.147-0.471), reward bias (SMD = 0.644; 95% CI, 0.270-1.017), and reinforcement learning (SMD = 0.352; 95% CI, 0.115-0.588) but not reward response vigor (SMD = 0.083; 95% CI, -0.144 to 0.309). The medication status of the major depressive disorder sample did not explain any of the variance in the overall effect size. There was significant between-study heterogeneity overall and in all subcomponent categories other than option valuation. Significant publication bias was identified overall and in the reinforcement learning category.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

Relative to healthy control individuals, individuals with depression exhibit reward-processing impairments, particularly for tests of reward bias, option valuation, and reinforcement learning. Understanding the neural mechanisms driving these associations may assist in designing novel interventions.

A transdiagnostic comparison of affective decision-making in patients with schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, or bipolar disorder

Deficit in decision-making has been found in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ), major depressive disorder (MDD), and bipolar disorder (BD), respectively, while the common and distinct characteristics of this deficit among these patients are still unclear. The present study aimed to make a transdiagnostic comparison of the affective decision-making ability in patients with SCZ, MDD, and BD. In this study, 33 patients with SCZ, 23 patients with MDD, 29 patients with BD, and 34 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) was used to assess the affective decision-making ability. The results showed that all three diagnostic groups tended to select the disadvantageous decks but not advantageous decks compared to HCs. For patients with SCZ, an excessive preference for the disadvantageous decks with larger-magnitude less frequent punishments (deck B) may be the main reason of the deficit in affective decision-making, while that in patients with MDD was a significantly decreased ability to choose advantageous decks on the whole but with larger-magnitude less frequent punishments (deck D). As regards patients with BD, the concurrence of more choices of deck B and fewer choices of deck D was the characteristic of the deficit in affective decision-making. Our findings suggest a common affective decision-making impairment in the context of multiple choices in patients with SCZ, MDD, and BD, while the underlying mechanisms of the impairment among these patients may be slightly different.

Reward and punishment learning in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Prior studies on reward learning deficits in psychiatric disorders have used probabilistic learning tasks, making it unclear whether impairment is due to the probabilistic nature of the task rather than reward processing. In this study, we tested probabilistic vs. deterministic reward and punishment learning in healthy controls and three patient groups: schizophrenia (SZ), psychotic bipolar disorder (BD), and nonpsychotic BD. Experimental results show that reward learning was impaired in patients with SZ and patients with psychotic BD in the probabilistic learning task compared to patients with nonpsychotic BD and healthy controls. In contrast, punishment learning in the probabilistic task was impaired in patients with nonpsychotic BD compared to the other patient groups and healthy controls. There were no significant differences among all groups in the deterministic learning task scores. We also found that Hamilton Depression Scale scores negatively correlated with probabilistic learning performance. Our data may suggest that reward learning impairment may be due to the nature of the task as well as subtype of BD.