Anhedonia in the psychosis risk syndrome: associations with social impairment and basal orbitofrontal cortical activity.

Background/objectives: Anhedonia is associated with poor social function in schizophrenia. Here, we examined this association in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders, taking into account social anxiety. We then explored correlations between anhedonia and basal metabolic activity in selected forebrain regions implicated in reward processing.

Social inference in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis.

Aim: Social cognition impairment is a hallmark of schizophrenia and contains multiple domains. The domain of social inference has been relatively understudied in schizophrenia and its risk states.

Methods: Social inference was assessed in 60 clinical high-risk (CHR) patients and 28 healthy control subjects, using the video social inference task.

Reasons for cannabis use among youths at ultra high risk for psychosis.

Aim: Cannabis use is prevalent in schizophrenia and its risk states, despite its association with anxiety and positive symptoms. While schizophrenia patients report using cannabis for mood enhancement and social motives, it is not known what motivates clinical high risk (CHR) patients to use cannabis.

Methods: Among 102 CHR patients, 24 (23%) endorsed cannabis use, and were queried as to reasons for use, using a scale previously administered in schizophrenia patients.

Spontaneous brain activity in combat related PTSD.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder, especially in combat veterans. Existing functional neuroimaging studies have provided important insights into the neural mechanisms of PTSD using various experimental paradigms involving trauma recollection or other forms of emotion provocation. However it is not clear whether the abnormal brain activity is specific to the mental processes related to the experimental tasks or reflects general patterns across different brain states.

Prefrontal cortical inputs to the basal amygdala undergo pruning during late adolescence in the rat.

Transformations in affective and social behaviors, many of which involve amygdalar circuits, are hallmarks of adolescence in many mammalian species. In this study, using the rat as a model, we provide the first evidence that afferents of the basal amygdala (BA) undergo significant structural remodeling during adolescence. We used quantitative tract-tracing and gene expression profiling methods to characterize changes in the medial prefrontal cortical (mPFC) inputs to the BA across ages analogous to the late juvenile period [postnatal day (P) 25], late adolescence (P45), and adulthood (P90) in the rat.