Neural activity to positive expressions predicts daily experience of schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms in adults with high social anhedonia.

Abstract

Social anhedonia (SA), the diminished pleasure from social relationships, is a prominent characteristic of the vulnerability and manifestation of schizophrenia disorder. However, SA can develop for multiple reasons and little is known about its neural basis; these 2 issues hinder the utility and sensitivity of SA as a marker of schizophrenia pathology. This study investigated whether lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) deficits in social reward processing are associated with both SA and other schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms. During functional MRI (fMRI), a community sample of healthy adults (N = 30) with high and low SA viewed positive, negative, and neutral facial expressions. Afterward, participants completed an online daily diary in which they rated schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms and occurrence of interpersonal conflict each day for 21 days. Compared with low SA, high SA participants had less ventral (V)LPFC activity to positive versus neutral expressions. In addition, participants with a combination of high SA and low VLPFC activity to positive versus neutral expressions had worse daily diary ratings of schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms, including worse cognition, paranoia, motivation/productivity, and vigor/positive affect (i.e., psychomotor activation). Finally, among high SA participants, VLPFC activity predicted the daily relationship between distress from interpersonal conflict and symptom-severity; specifically, high SA participants with low VLPFC activity had worse paranoia on days of high conflict distress. These findings indicate that VLPFC deficits in positive emotion are associated with both SA and other schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms and that understanding the interaction of SA, VLPFC function, and social stress could facilitate the use of SA in the prevention and treatment of schizophrenia.

Associations between trait anhedonia and emotional memory deficits in females with schizophrenia versus major depression

“…The less robust association of SA with memory for positive stimuli was unexpected considering a growing body of research implicating trait anhedonia with deficient recruitment of neural regions while processing positive information. For instance, inverse relationships between SA and neural activity in the caudate (Dowd & Barch, 2010) and ventral lateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) are found when control samples process positive and socially relevant stimuli (Hooker et al, 2014). We additionally found that higher levels of PA were predictive of reduced memory of negative images across all three diagnostic groups.…”

“…This diminished salience signaling could contribute to difficulties in prioritizing emotional experiences for memory consolidation. Moreover, trait anhedonia is also strongly implicated in prefrontal regions responsible for reward guided decision making, regulation of positive emotion, and linking affect with goal directed behavior (Keedwell et al, 2005; Harvey et al, 2007; Wacker et al, 2009; Becerril and Barch, 2011; Ursu et al, 2011; Hooker et al, 2014). Collectively, deficient functioning in frontal-striatal networks may relate to trait anhedonia and emotional memory deficits.…”

“…Social anhedonia (SA), the experience of decreased interest and enjoyment from social activities and relationships (Chapman et al, 1976), is also relevant to examining emotional memory deficits. For instance, SA has been reliably associated with reduced response to emotional and social stimuli in control samples (Mathews and Barch, 2006; Hooker et al, 2014). Reductions in neurocognitive performance are also evident in control (Cohen et al, 2006) and SZ participants (Horan and Blanchard, 2003).…”

Social impairment in schizophrenia

“…Cognitive control of emotion comprises a continuum of processes, ranging from controlling attention to and changing the meaning of perceived/experienced emotions, in which cognitive control circuitry modulates emotion processing regions to control the impact of emotion on experience and behavior [40]. Mounting evidence indicates impaired cognitive control of emotion may be characteristic of the schizophrenia-spectrum [43], arises from dysfunctional activation in cognitive control regions, particularly LPFC [43], and contributes to symptom exacerbation and maladaptive response to social stressors [44,45]. Consequently, interventions that are designed to improve cognitive control of emotion could improve social functioning.…”

“…For example, emotion regulation could impact social functioning in schizophrenia via deficits in the up -regulation of emotions and prosocial feelings, which could contribute to the social anhedonia [45] and reduced reward-related motivation [63] observed in schizophrenia. One such prosocial feeling is compassion, the understanding of another’s difficult situation (reliant on ToM) along with the expression of concern and desire to relieve their distress [64].…”