Effort discounting and its association with negative symptoms in schizophrenia.

Introduction: Deficits in the initiation and persistence of goal-directed behaviour are key aspects of schizophrenia. In this study, the association between these motivational deficits and discounting of reward value in function of increasing physical effort costs was investigated.

Methods: Effort-based decision-making was investigated in 40 patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and 30 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects by means of an effort discounting task.