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Dampened motivation in schizophrenia: evidence from a novel effort-based decision-making task in social scenarios

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Abstract

Apathy represents a significant manifestation of negative symptoms within individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia (SCZ) and exerts a profound impact on their social relationships. However, the specific implications of this motivational deficit in social scenarios have yet to be fully elucidated. The present study aimed to examine effort-based decision-making in social scenarios and its relation to apathy symptoms in SCZ patients. We initially recruited a group of 50 healthy participants (16 males) to assess the validity of the paradigm. Subsequently, we recruited 45 individuals diagnosed with SCZ (24 males) and 49 demographically-matched healthy controls (HC, 25 males) for the main study. The Mock Job Interview Task was developed to measure effort-based decision-making in social scenarios. The proportion of hard-task choice and a range of subjective ratings were obtained to examine potential between-group differences. SCZ patients were less likely than HC to choose the hard task with strict interviewers, and this group difference was significant when the hard-task reward value was medium and high. More severe apathy symptoms were significantly correlated with an overall reduced likelihood of making a hard-task choice. When dividing the jobs into two categories based on the levels of social engagement needed, SCZ patients were less willing to expend effort to pursue a potential offer for jobs requiring higher social engagement. Our findings indicated impaired effort-based decision-making in SCZ can be generalized from the monetary/nonsocial to a more ecologically social dimension. Our findings affirm the critical role of aberrant effort allocation on negative symptoms, and may facilitate the development of targeted clinical interventions.

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The datasets are only available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (21ZR142000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32171084) and the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (20YJC190025). We appreciated all the participants who agreed to participate in the project, as well as research assistants (L. Zhou; H.R. Zhang; Y. Fan; S.N. Huang) and technical specialist (Dr. Z.T. Chen) for their great assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (MOE and STCSM), Affiliated Mental Health Center (ECNU), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Room 413, Building Junxiu, 3663 North Zhongshan Road, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Yu-Xin Shao, Shuai Liu & Chao Yan

  2. Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China

    Yu-Xin Shao, Shuai Liu & Chao Yan

  3. Leshan Hi-Tech Zone Jiaxiang Foreign Languages School, Sichuan, China

    Yu-Xin Shao

  4. School of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Ling-Ling Wang

  5. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Han-Yu Zhou

  6. Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Zheng-Hui Yi

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  1. Yu-Xin Shao
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  2. Ling-Ling Wang
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  4. Zheng-Hui Yi
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  5. Shuai Liu
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  6. Chao Yan
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Contributions

Y-XS and CY collaboratively generated the idea and conceptualized the aims and hypotheses of the study. Z-HY conducted clinical assessments and transferred patients to our study. Y-XS, L-LW and CY designed and programmed the experimental paradigm. Y-XS recruited participants and collected data with the assistance of our research assistants. Y-XS conducted data analysis and completed the manuscript. CY, Han-YZ and SL provided feedback on the concept and the text of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chao Yan.

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The authors declare that there were no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.

Ethical standards

The study was approved by the Ethics Committees of the East China Normal University (HR2015/03003). All participants gave written informed consent before the commencement of the study. Details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under study were be omitted.

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Shao, YX., Wang, LL., Zhou, HY. et al. Dampened motivation in schizophrenia: evidence from a novel effort-based decision-making task in social scenarios. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-024-01761-8

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