Individuals with schizophrenia display behaviour inconsistent with learned social impressions during a gambling task.

Many studies of social perception and judgement have required individuals to make evaluations of social parameters based on static presentations of social stimuli. In the current study, we assessed whether individuals with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder and community controls differed in their judgements of others based on a series of computerized encounters designed to simulate impression formation over time. Twenty-eight community controls and 29 individuals with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder completed 25 gambling interactions with three different computer partners.

Course and symptom and functional correlates of passivity symptoms in schizophrenia: an 18-year multi-follow-up longitudinal study.

Background: Change in the experience of oneself may lay the groundwork for the development of additional hallucinations and delusions in individuals with schizophrenia. However, to date, the course and symptom and functioning correlates of passivity symptoms (cf. thought insertion, thought withdrawal) have not been measured consistently over long periods of time.

Altered amygdala-prefrontal connectivity during emotion perception in schizophrenia.

Individuals with schizophrenia evidence impaired emotional functioning. Abnormal amygdala activity has been identified as an etiological factor underlying affective impairment in this population, but the exact nature remains unclear. The current study utilized psychophysiological interaction analyses to examine functional connectivity between the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) during an emotion perception task.

Schizophrenia symptom and functional correlates of anterior cingulate cortex activation to emotion stimuli: An fMRI investigation.

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness characterized by distinct positive and negative symptoms and functional impairment. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a region of the brain's limbic system that is hypoactive during emotion processing in schizophrenia. Recent evidence suggests the hypoactive ACC in schizophrenia is due to negative (and not positive) symptoms.

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

Individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) and individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) demonstrate impaired emotional memory and decreased enjoyment of pleasant experiences (e.g., anhedonia).

Affective personality predictors of disrupted reward learning and pursuit in major depressive disorder.

Anhedonia, the diminished anticipation and pursuit of reward, is a core symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD). Trait behavioral activation (BA), as a proxy for anhedonia, and behavioral inhibition (BI) may moderate the relationship between MDD and reward-seeking. The present studies probed for reward learning deficits, potentially due to aberrant BA and/or BI, in active or remitted MDD individuals compared to healthy controls (HC).

The impact of social content and negative symptoms on affective ratings in schizophrenia.

The anhedonia paradox has been a topic of ongoing study in schizophrenia. Previous research has found that schizophrenia patients report less enjoyment from various activities when compared to their healthy counterparts; however, the two groups appear to have similar in-the-moment emotional ratings of these events (Gard et al., 2007; Herbener et al.

Social perception in schizophrenia: evidence of temporo-occipital and prefrontal dysfunction.

Individuals with schizophrenia evidence deficits in social functioning such as difficulties in communication, maintaining employment, and functioning as a member of the community. Impairment in such functions has been linked with higher order social cognitive deficits, which, in turn, have been associated with abnormal brain function. However, it is unclear whether brain abnormalities are found specifically for higher order social cognitive functioning, or whether "lower order" social processing, such as perceiving social stimuli, might demonstrate abnormalities at the neural level.

Negative symptoms and the failure to represent the expected reward value of actions: behavioral and computational modeling evidence.

Context: Negative symptoms are a core feature of schizophrenia, but their pathogenesis remains unclear. Negative symptoms are defined by the absence of normal function. However, there must be a productive mechanism that leads to this absence.

Patterns of emotional experience in schizophrenia: differences in emotional response to visual stimuli are associated with clinical presentation and functional outcome.

The current study examined whether patterns of emotional response are differentially associated with symptom presentation and functional outcome in individuals with schizophrenia. Participants included 49 outpatients with schizophrenia and 50 demographically matched controls. All participants rated their emotional response to 131 images from the International Affective Picture Systems (IAPS) library on both arousal and valence scales.

Deficits in positive reinforcement learning and uncertainty-driven exploration are associated with distinct aspects of negative symptoms in schizophrenia.

Background: Negative symptoms are core features of schizophrenia (SZ); however, the cognitive and neural basis for individual negative symptom domains remains unclear. Converging evidence suggests a role for striatal and prefrontal dopamine in reward learning and the exploration of actions that might produce outcomes that are better than the status quo. The current study examines whether deficits in reinforcement learning and uncertainty-driven exploration predict specific negative symptom domains.

Patients with schizophrenia demonstrate inconsistent preference judgments for affective and nonaffective stimuli.

Previous studies have typically found that individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) report levels of emotional experience that are similar to controls (CN) when asked to view a single evocative stimulus and make an absolute judgment of stimulus "value." However, value is rarely assigned in absolute terms in real-life situations, where one alternative or experience is often evaluated alongside others, and value judgments are made in relative terms. In the current study, we examined performance on a preference task that requires individuals to differentiate between the relative values of different stimuli.

Salience of working-memory maintenance and manipulation deficits in schizophrenia.

Background: Encoding and maintenance of information in working memory, followed by internal manipulation of that information for planning adaptive behavior, are two key components of working-memory systems. Both processes have been reported to be impaired in schizophrenia, but few studies have directly compared the relative severity of these abnormalities, or the degree to which manipulation deficits might be secondary to alterations in maintenance processes.

Method: Clinically stable schizophrenia patients (n=25) and a demographically similar healthy comparison group (n=24) were administered a verbal span task with three levels of working-memory load.

Deficits in emotional awareness in schizophrenia and their relationship with other measures of functioning.

Conscious awareness of emotion is adaptive and its disruption in schizophrenia can impact social functioning. This study assessed levels of emotional awareness for self and others in social scenarios (Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale) in 21 individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) and 20 healthy individuals. Individuals with SSD had lower levels of emotional awareness for others in complex social scenarios, but not simple social scenarios; no difference was found in emotional awareness for self.

Stability and relationships between trait or state anhedonia and schizophrenic symptoms in schizophrenia: a 13-year follow-up study.

The aim of the present study was to explore the stability of anhedonia and its relationships with schizophrenic symptoms across a 13-year study period. We tested the hypothesis that trait anhedonia, rated by the Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS), was stable and independent of schizophrenic symptoms across this period, while measures of state anhedonia were not. Sixty schizophrenic subjects were evaluated at two time points, at hospital admission or during an ambulatory psychiatric consultation and 13 years later.

Impairment in long-term retention of preference conditioning in schizophrenia.

Background: Schizophrenia illness is characterized by significant impairments in long-term episodic memory, which are associated with hippocampal abnormalities. This study assessed long-term memory for preference conditioning, which is believed to be more strongly based in the basolateral amygdala, to determine whether abnormalities in biological systems supporting long-term memory are specific to the hippocampus or shared across brain regions involved in different types of memory.

Methods: Eighteen schizophrenia (SC) and 24 healthy control (HC) subjects, matched on age, sex, and years of education, participated in the study.

Emotional memory in schizophrenia.

Emotional memories play an important role in our day-to-day experience, informing many of our minute-to-minute decisions (eg, where to go for dinner, what are the likely consequences of not attending a meeting), as well as our long-term goal setting. Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in memory for emotional experiences, particularly over longer delay periods, which may contribute to deficits in goal-related behavior and symptoms of amotivation and anhedonia. This article reviews factors that are known to influence emotional memory in healthy subjects, applies these factors to results from emotional memory studies with individuals with schizophrenia, and then uses extant neurobiological models of emotional memory formation to develop hypotheses about biological processes that might particularly contribute to emotional memory impairment in schizophrenia.

Affect regulation: a systems neuroscience perspective.

Objective: TO INTEGRATE: (1) the neuroanatomical model of affect regulation; (2) a functional model of affect regulation; and (3) the evolving picture of affect dysregulation as exemplified by bipolar disorder.

Methodology: A computerized search for articles on related topics was augmented by additional selected studies.

Results: Subdivision between the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is defined by distinct cytoarchitecture, corticocortical and subcortical connectivity, and function.

Neurocognitive allied phenotypes for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Psychiatric disorders are genetically complex and represent the end product of multiple biological and social factors. Links between genes and disorder-related abnormalities can be effectively captured via assessment of phenotypes that are both associated with genetic effects and potentially contributory to behavioral abnormalities. Identifying intermediate or allied phenotypes as a strategy for clarifying genetic contributions to disorders has been successful in other areas of medicine and is a promising strategy for identifying susceptibility genes in complex psychiatric disorders.

What aspects of emotional functioning are impaired in schizophrenia?

Disturbances in emotional functioning are a major cause of persistent functional disability in schizophrenia. However, it is not clear what specific aspects of emotional functioning are impaired. Some studies have indicated diminished experience of positive affect in individuals with schizophrenia, while others have not.

Facial emotion processing in acutely ill and euthymic patients with pediatric bipolar disorder.

Objective: Past investigations indicate facial emotion-processing abnormalities in pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) subjects. However, the extent to which these deficits represent state- and trait-related factors is unclear. We investigated facial affect processing in acutely ill and clinically stabilized children with PBD and matched healthy subjects.

Failure of positive but not negative emotional valence to enhance memory in schizophrenia.

Abnormalities in the integration of emotion and cognition have long been considered hallmark characteristics of schizophrenia. Study authors used a well-established emotional memory model from the neuroscience literature to assess the facilitative impact of emotional valence of information on long-term memory consolidation in schizophrenia. Participants with schizophrenia (n=33) indicated somewhat higher levels of emotional intensity in response to emotional images than did healthy (n=28) participants.

Neurocognitive function in unmedicated manic and medicated euthymic pediatric bipolar patients.

Objective: A systematic evaluation of neuropsychological functioning in individuals with pediatric bipolar disorder is necessary to clarify the types of cognitive deficits that are associated with acutely ill and euthymic phases of the disorder and the effects of medication on these deficits.

Method: Unmedicated (N=28) and medicated (N=28) pediatric bipolar patients and healthy individuals (N=28) (mean age=11.74 years, SD=2.

Effects of antipsychotic treatment on emotion perception deficits in first-episode schizophrenia.

Objective: The authors evaluated emotion perception in acutely ill patients experiencing a first episode of schizophrenia. They also investigated the effects of antipsychotic medication on emotion perception.

Method: Tests of the ability to perceive and discriminate emotional expressions from the Penn Computerized Neuropsychological Battery were given to 13 patients experiencing their first episode of schizophrenia.

Do patients with schizophrenia ever show periods of recovery? A 15-year multi-follow-up study.

Contrary to older views, with modern treatment some or many patients with schizophrenia may show intervals of recovery. The current 15-year prospectively designed follow-up research comparing schizophrenia patients with other types of psychotic and nonpsychotic patients studied how many schizophrenia patients ever show intervals of recovery. Two hundred seventy-four early young psychiatric patients from the Chicago Followup Study, including 64 schizophrenia patients, 12 schizophreniform patients, 81 other psychotic patients, and 117 nonpsychotic patients, were assessed as inpatients and then reassessed 5 times over 15 years.