Brain Age Gap in Early Illness Schizophrenia and the Clinical High-Risk Syndrome: Associations With Experiential Negative Symptoms and Conversion to Psychosis.

Background And Hypothesis: Brain development/aging is not uniform across individuals, spawning efforts to characterize brain age from a biological perspective to model the effects of disease and maladaptive life processes on the brain. The brain age gap represents the discrepancy between estimated brain biological age and chronological age (in this case, based on structural magnetic resonance imaging, MRI). Structural MRI studies report an increased brain age gap (biological age > chronological age) in schizophrenia, with a greater brain age gap related to greater negative symptom severity.

Pons-to-Cerebellum Hypoconnectivity Along the Psychosis Spectrum and Associations With Sensory Prediction and Hallucinations in Schizophrenia.

Background: Sensory prediction allows the brain to anticipate and parse incoming self-generated sensory information from externally generated signals. Sensory prediction breakdowns may contribute to perceptual and agency abnormalities in psychosis (hallucinations, delusions). The pons, a central node in a cortico-ponto-cerebellar-thalamo-cortical circuit, is thought to support sensory prediction.

Alpha Event-Related Desynchronization During Reward Processing in Schizophrenia.

Background: Alterations in the brain's reward system may underlie motivation and pleasure deficits in schizophrenia (SZ). Neuro-oscillatory desynchronization in the alpha band is thought to direct resource allocation away from the internal state, to prioritize processing salient environmental events, including reward feedback. We hypothesized reduced reward-related alpha event-related desynchronization (ERD) in SZ, consistent with less externally focused processing during reward feedback.

Cerebellar stimulation in schizophrenia: A systematic review of the evidence and an overview of the methods.

Background: Cerebellar structural and functional abnormalities underlie widespread deficits in clinical, cognitive, and motor functioning that are observed in schizophrenia. Consequently, the cerebellum is a promising target for novel schizophrenia treatments. Here we conducted an updated systematic review examining the literature on cerebellar stimulation efficacy and tolerability for mitigating symptoms of schizophrenia.

Advanced brain age correlates with greater rumination and less mindfulness in schizophrenia.

Background: Individual variation in brain aging trajectories is linked with several physical and mental health outcomes. Greater stress levels, worry, and rumination correspond with advanced brain age, while other individual characteristics, like mindfulness, may be protective of brain health. Multiple lines of evidence point to advanced brain aging in schizophrenia (i.

Sunk cost sensitivity during change-of-mind decisions is informed by both the spent and remaining costs.

Sunk cost sensitivity describes escalating decision commitment with increased spent resources. On neuroeconomic foraging tasks, mice, rats, and humans show similar escalations from sunk costs while quitting an ongoing countdown to reward. In a new analysis taken across computationally parallel foraging tasks across species and laboratories, we find that these behaviors primarily occur on choices that are economically inconsistent with the subject's other choices, and that they reflect not only the time spent, but also the time remaining, suggesting that these are change-of-mind re-evaluation processes.

Consider the pons: bridging the gap on sensory prediction abnormalities in schizophrenia.

A shared mechanism across species heralds the arrival of self-generated sensations, helping the brain to anticipate, and therefore distinguish, self-generated from externally generated sensations. In mammals, this sensory prediction mechanism is supported by communication within a cortico-ponto-cerebellar-thalamo-cortical loop. Schizophrenia is associated with impaired sensory prediction as well as abnormal structural and functional connections between nodes in this circuit.

Validation of ketamine as a pharmacological model of thalamic dysconnectivity across the illness course of schizophrenia.

N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) hypofunction is a leading pathophysiological model of schizophrenia. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) studies demonstrate a thalamic dysconnectivity pattern in schizophrenia involving excessive connectivity with sensory regions and deficient connectivity with frontal, cerebellar, and thalamic regions. The NMDAR antagonist ketamine, when administered at sub-anesthetic doses to healthy volunteers, induces transient schizophrenia-like symptoms and alters rsfMRI thalamic connectivity.

Psychological Dimensions Relevant to Motivation and Pleasure in Schizophrenia.

Motivation and pleasure deficits are common in schizophrenia, strongly linked with poorer functioning, and may reflect underlying alterations in brain functions governing reward processing and goal pursuit. While there is extensive research examining cognitive and reward mechanisms related to these deficits in schizophrenia, less attention has been paid to psychological characteristics that contribute to resilience against, or risk for, motivation and pleasure impairment. For example, psychological tendencies involving positive future expectancies (e.

Working memory and alcohol demand relationships differ according to PTSD symptom severity among veterans with AUD.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are highly comorbid with complex and often unclear associations. Working memory deficits may represent a shared mechanism implicated in emotion regulation and control over impulsive alcohol use. Here we test whether PTSD symptoms and working memory correlated with performance on a behavioral economic assessment of alcohol demand.

Vicarious Trial-and-Error Is Enhanced During Deliberation in Human Virtual Navigation in a Translational Foraging Task.

Foraging tasks provide valuable insights into decision-making as animals decide how to allocate limited resources (such as time). In rodents, vicarious trial-and-error (back and forth movements), or VTE, is an important behavioral measure of deliberation which is enhanced early in learning and when animals are presented with difficult decisions. Using new translational versions of a rodent foraging task (the "Movie Row" and "Candy Row"), humans navigated a virtual maze presented on standard computers to obtain rewards (either short videos or candy) offered after a variable delay.

Reward processing electrophysiology in schizophrenia: Effects of age and illness phase.

Background: Reward processing abnormalities may underlie characteristic pleasure and motivational impairments in schizophrenia. Some neural measures of reward processing show age-related modulation, highlighting the importance of considering age effects on reward sensitivity. We compared event-related potentials (ERPs) reflecting reward anticipation (stimulus-preceding negativity, SPN) and evaluation (reward positivity, RewP; late positive potential, LPP) across individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy controls (HC), with an emphasis on examining the effects of chronological age, brain age (i.

Oxytocin Enhances an Amygdala Circuit Associated With Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia: A Single-Dose, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover, Randomized Control Trial.

Negative symptoms are core contributors to vocational and social deficits in schizophrenia (SZ). Available antipsychotic medications typically fail to reduce these symptoms. The neurohormone oxytocin (OT) is a promising treatment for negative symptoms, given its role in complex social behaviors mediated by the amygdala.

Learning From Loss After Risk: Dissociating Reward Pursuit and Reward Valuation in a Naturalistic Foraging Task.

A fundamental feature of addiction is continued use despite high-cost losses. One possible driver of this feature is a dissociation between reward pursuit and reward valuation. To test for this dissociation, we employed a foraging paradigm with real-time delays and video rewards.

Neural signatures underlying deliberation in human foraging decisions.

Humans have a remarkable capacity to mentally project themselves far ahead in time. This ability, which entails the mental simulation of events, is thought to be fundamental to deliberative decision making, as it allows us to search through and evaluate possible choices. Many decisions that humans make are foraging decisions, in which one must decide whether an available offer is worth taking, when compared to unknown future possibilities (i.

Sensitivity to "sunk costs" in mice, rats, and humans.

Sunk costs are irrecoverable investments that should not influence decisions, because decisions should be made on the basis of expected future consequences. Both human and nonhuman animals can show sensitivity to sunk costs, but reports from across species are inconsistent. In a temporal context, a sensitivity to sunk costs arises when an individual resists ending an activity, even if it seems unproductive, because of the time already invested.

The goal priority network as a neural substrate of Conscientiousness.

Conscientiousness is a personality trait associated with many important life outcomes, but little is known about the mechanisms that underlie it. We investigated its neural correlates using functional connectivity analysis in fMRI, which identifies brain regions that act in synchrony. We tested the hypothesis that a broad network resembling a combination of the salience and ventral attention networks, which we provisionally label the goal priority network (GPN), is a neural correlate of Conscientiousness.

Personality and Neural Correlates of Mentalizing Ability.

Theory of mind, or , defined as the ability to reason about another's mental states, is a crucial psychological function that is disrupted in some forms of psychopathology, but little is known about how individual differences in this ability relate to personality or brain function. One previous study linked mentalizing ability to individual differences in the personality trait Agreeableness. Agreeableness encompasses two major subdimensions: Compassion reflects tendencies toward empathy, prosocial behavior, and interpersonal concern, whereas Politeness captures tendencies to suppress aggressive and exploitative impulses.

Neural correlates of preserved facial affect perception in high functioning schizophrenia.

Individuals with 'high functioning' schizophrenia (HF-SCZ) may have preserved facial affect perception (FAP) compared to individuals with 'low functioning' schizophrenia (LF-SCZ). The neural mechanisms supporting preserved FAP in HF-SCZ have yet to be evaluated. This study compared brain activation during FAP performance in HF-SCZ, LF-SCZ, and controls.

Default mode functional connectivity is associated with social functioning in schizophrenia.

Individuals with schizophrenia display notable deficits in social functioning. Research indicates that neural connectivity within the default mode network (DMN) is related to social cognition and social functioning in healthy and clinical populations. However, the association between DMN connectivity, social cognition, and social functioning has not been studied in schizophrenia.

Using personality neuroscience to study personality disorder.

Personality neuroscience integrates techniques from personality psychology and neuroscience to elucidate the neural basis of individual differences in cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior. This endeavor is pertinent not only to our understanding of healthy personality variation, but also to the aberrant trait manifestations present in personality disorders and severe psychopathology. In the current review, we focus on the advances and limitations of neuroimaging methods with respect to personality neuroscience.

Fronto-temporal connectivity predicts cognitive empathy deficits and experiential negative symptoms in schizophrenia.

Impaired cognitive empathy is a core social cognitive deficit in schizophrenia associated with negative symptoms and social functioning. Cognitive empathy and negative symptoms have also been linked to medial prefrontal and temporal brain networks. While shared behavioral and neural underpinnings are suspected for cognitive empathy and negative symptoms, research is needed to test these hypotheses.

Bootstrap Enhanced Penalized Regression for Variable Selection with Neuroimaging Data.

Recent advances in fMRI research highlight the use of multivariate methods for examining whole-brain connectivity. Complementary data-driven methods are needed for determining the subset of predictors related to individual differences. Although commonly used for this purpose, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression may not be ideal due to multi-collinearity and over-fitting issues.

The Web-Surf Task: A translational model of human decision-making.

Animal models of decision-making are some of the most highly regarded psychological process models; however, there remains a disconnection between how these models are used for pre-clinical applications and the resulting treatment outcomes. This may be due to untested assumptions that different species recruit the same neural or psychological mechanisms. We propose a novel human foraging paradigm (Web-Surf Task) that we translated from a rat foraging paradigm (Restaurant Row) to evaluate cross-species decision-making similarities.