Department of Clinical, Neuro- and Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Movement Sciences, Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands; CSI Lab, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Department of Psychosis Studies, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
Department of Clinical, Neuro- and Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Movement Sciences, Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Schizophr Res. 2020 Jan;215:256-262. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2019.10.019. Epub 2019 Nov 18.
Patients with a disorder in the schizophrenia spectrum (SZ) demonstrate impairments in reward learning. A reduced sensitivity to social reward may impede social beyond non-social reward learning mechanisms. The aim of the current study was to investigate social and non-social reward learning in SZ by means of two interactive game-theoretical investment paradigms. Unaffected first-degree relatives of patients were included to examine whether (social) reward-learning impairments are part of a familial vulnerability of SZ. We included 50 patients with a SZ disorder, 20 unaffected first-degree relatives of patients and 49 healthy controls. The trust game (social) and the lottery game (non-social) were used, consisting of 20 game trials each. The game paradigms were programmed to increase the likelihood of higher repayments in response to increased investments. Multilevel regression analyses were used to examine learning over trials in both contexts. The results showed that controls learned equally well in social and non-social contexts, as reflected in an increase of investments over game rounds in both paradigms. In contrast, patients and relatives showed reduced reward learning, regardless of its social or non-social nature, reflected by flatter or decreasing slopes over game rounds in both paradigms. The findings suggest that patients and relatives have a general reduced sensitivity to reward, which appears to reflect a familial vulnerability rather than illness related mechanisms. Results indicate that reward learning may be an important marker for the familial risk to SZ.
患有精神分裂症谱系障碍（SZ）的患者表现出奖励学习受损。对社会奖励的敏感性降低可能会阻碍社会奖励学习机制超越非社会奖励学习机制。本研究的目的是通过两种交互式博弈论投资范式来研究 SZ 中的社会和非社会奖励学习。纳入未受影响的患者一级亲属，以检验（社会）奖励学习障碍是否是 SZ 家族易感性的一部分。我们纳入了 50 名 SZ 障碍患者、20 名未受影响的患者一级亲属和 49 名健康对照者。使用信任游戏（社会）和彩票游戏（非社会），每个游戏各包含 20 个游戏试验。游戏范式编程以增加响应增加投资而获得更高回报的可能性。使用多层回归分析来检查两种情况下的试验学习。结果表明，对照组在社会和非社会情境中均能很好地学习，这反映在两个范式中的投资随着游戏轮次的增加而增加。相比之下，无论奖励是社会性质的还是非社会性质的，患者和亲属的奖励学习能力都有所下降，这反映在两个范式中的斜率都较平坦或呈下降趋势。研究结果表明，患者和亲属对奖励的敏感性普遍降低，这似乎反映了家族易感性，而不是与疾病相关的机制。结果表明，奖励学习可能是 SZ 家族风险的一个重要标志物。
