Whitton Alexis E, Lewandowski Kathryn E, Hall Mei-Hua
Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2031, Australia.
Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorders Program, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, Boston, MA 02478, USA.
Brain Sci. 2021 Nov 29;11(12):1581. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11121581.
Motivational and perceptual disturbances co-occur in psychosis and have been linked to aberrations in reward learning and sensory gating, respectively. Although traditionally studied independently, when viewed through a predictive coding framework, these processes can both be linked to dysfunction in striatal dopaminergic prediction error signaling. This study examined whether reward learning and sensory gating are correlated in individuals with psychotic disorders, and whether nicotine-a psychostimulant that amplifies phasic striatal dopamine firing-is a common modulator of these two processes. We recruited 183 patients with psychotic disorders (79 schizophrenia, 104 psychotic bipolar disorder) and 129 controls and assessed reward learning (behavioral probabilistic reward task), sensory gating (P50 event-related potential), and smoking history. Reward learning and sensory gating were correlated across the sample. Smoking influenced reward learning and sensory gating in both patient groups; however, the effects were in opposite directions. Specifically, smoking was associated with improved performance in individuals with schizophrenia but impaired performance in individuals with psychotic bipolar disorder. These findings suggest that reward learning and sensory gating are linked and modulated by smoking. However, disorder-specific associations with smoking suggest that nicotine may expose pathophysiological differences in the architecture and function of prediction error circuitry in these overlapping yet distinct psychotic disorders.
动机和感知障碍在精神病中同时出现，并且分别与奖赏学习和感觉门控异常有关。尽管传统上是独立研究的，但从预测编码框架来看，这些过程都可能与纹状体多巴胺能预测误差信号的功能障碍有关。本研究调查了奖赏学习和感觉门控在患有精神障碍的个体中是否相关，以及尼古丁（一种能增强纹状体多巴胺阶段性放电的精神兴奋剂）是否是这两个过程的共同调节因子。我们招募了183名患有精神障碍的患者（79名精神分裂症患者，104名精神病性双相情感障碍患者）和129名对照者，并评估了奖赏学习（行为概率奖赏任务）、感觉门控（P50事件相关电位）和吸烟史。在整个样本中，奖赏学习和感觉门控是相关的。吸烟对两个患者组的奖赏学习和感觉门控都有影响；然而，影响方向相反。具体而言，吸烟与精神分裂症患者的表现改善有关，但与精神病性双相情感障碍患者的表现受损有关。这些发现表明，奖赏学习和感觉门控是相关的，并且受吸烟调节。然而，与吸烟的疾病特异性关联表明，尼古丁可能揭示了这些重叠但又不同的精神障碍中预测误差回路的结构和功能的病理生理差异。
