EPA-0801 - Anhedonia and Real-life Motivation in Patients with Schizophrenia

Abstract

Introduction:

Anhedonia has been regarded as a core deficit of schizophrenia and has been assigned a central role in the pathogenetic models of the syndrome as well as in the disability associated to it. Current research suggests that schizophrenia patients do not have a deficit in hedonic experience but, instead, a reduced ability to anticipate reward that might underlie other aspects of schizophrenia, such as avolition and lack of initiative.

Aims:

The present study was aimed at characterizing these aspects in a sample of 35 patients with schizophrenia stabilized on second generation antipsychotics by comparing them to a group of 26 healthy controls (HC).

Methods:

In both patients and HC, instruments specifically designed to assess the experience of consummatory and anticipatory pleasure as well as trait social and physical anhedonia were used; the factor ’real-life motivation’ was extracted by the Quality of Life Scale.

Results:

Patients showed, with respect to HC, higher trait social anhedonia, as well as reduced real-life motivation, but similar scores for trait physical anhedonia and the experience of consummatory or anticipatory pleasure.

Conclusions:

In our sample of patients with schizophrenia the preserved experience of both consummatory and anticipatory pleasure in the presence of a significant deficit of motivation suggests a poor ability to translate pleasurable experiences into motivational states.

Authors thank Compagnia di San Paolo-Neuroscience Call that funded the project 'Reward system and primary negative symptoms in schizophrenia'.