Li Zi-Lin, Huang Gao-Jie, Li Ze-Tian, Li Shu-Bin, Wang Yi-le, Zhao Jiu-Bo, Wen Jin-Feng, Hummel Thomas, Zou Lai-Quan
Chemical Senses and Mental Health Lab, Department of Psychology, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University (Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research), Guangzhou, China.
Department of Psychology, Guangdong 999 Brain Hospital, Guangzhou, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2020 Jun 4;11:481. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00481. eCollection 2020.
Anhedonia, the loss or decline of the ability to enjoy pleasure, is an important clinical characteristic of schizophrenia. Schizotypal traits refer to the appearance of subclinical symptoms of schizophrenia across normal people. Still, few studies have investigated chemosensory anhedonia in schizophrenia patients and schizotypy individuals. Seventy-one schizophrenia patients (SCZ), 162 schizotypy individuals (SCT) as selected by the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ), and 182 healthy controls (HC) participated in our study. We used the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) to measure the clinical symptoms of schizophrenia patients. All participants completed the Chemosensory Pleasure Scale (CPS), which was used to assess participants' smell and taste hedonic capacities. We found that the three groups differed in chemosensory anhedonia. The SCZ group presented more severe chemosensory anhedonia than the SCT group, and the SCT group presented more severe chemosensory anhedonia than the HC group. We also found that chemosensory hedonic capacity was negatively correlated with negative schizotypal traits in the SCT group. Our results suggested that chemosensory anhedonia is an important characteristic of schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
快感缺失，即享受愉悦能力的丧失或衰退，是精神分裂症的一项重要临床特征。分裂型特质指的是精神分裂症的亚临床症状在正常人身上的表现。然而，很少有研究调查过精神分裂症患者和分裂型人格个体的化学感觉快感缺失情况。71名精神分裂症患者（SCZ）、162名通过分裂型人格问卷（SPQ）筛选出的分裂型人格个体（SCT）以及182名健康对照者（HC）参与了我们的研究。我们使用阳性和阴性症状量表（PANSS）来测量精神分裂症患者的临床症状。所有参与者都完成了化学感觉愉悦量表（CPS），该量表用于评估参与者的嗅觉和味觉享乐能力。我们发现三组在化学感觉快感缺失方面存在差异。SCZ组的化学感觉快感缺失比SCT组更严重，SCT组的化学感觉快感缺失比HC组更严重。我们还发现，在SCT组中，化学感觉享乐能力与阴性分裂型特质呈负相关。我们的研究结果表明，化学感觉快感缺失是精神分裂症谱系障碍的一个重要特征。
