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Brain Sciences
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Relationships between Neural Correlates and Decision Variables and Schizophrenia
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Relationships between Neural Correlates and Decision Variables and Schizophrenia

A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Psychiatric Diseases".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 11690

Special Issue Editor

Dr. James A Waltz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
University of Maryland School of Medicine, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, P.O. Box 21247, Baltimore, MD 21228, USA
Interests: psychosis; computational psychiatry; reward; motivation; uncertainty; prefrontal; insula; striatum

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to announce that I will be editing a collection of articles on the relationships between neural correlates and decision variables and schizophrenia for the journal Brain Sciences, to which I invite you to submit a manuscript due to your expertise in this area. I welcome manuscripts describing results from MRI and EEG studies of decision-making under uncertainty in psychotic illness, factors driving set-shifting vs. set maintenance, the exploration/exploitation trade-off, cost/benefit decision-making, or related topics. Studies linking neural and psychological processes underlying decision-making to the severity of psychiatric symptoms in psychotic illness, or clinical or functional course would be of particular interest. Studies examining neural and psychological processes underlying decision-making as potential treatment targets would be of interest, as well.

Dr. James A Waltz
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • psychosis
  • reward
  • effort
  • uncertainty
  • set shifting
  • prefrontal
  • insula
  • striatum

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 999 KiB  
Article
Investigating the Relationships of P3b with Negative Symptoms and Neurocognition in Subjects with Chronic Schizophrenia
by Giulia M. Giordano, Andrea Perrottelli, Armida Mucci, Giorgio Di Lorenzo, Mario Altamura, Antonello Bellomo, Roberto Brugnoli, Giulio Corrivetti, Paolo Girardi, Palmiero Monteleone, Cinzia Niolu, Silvana Galderisi, Mario Maj and The Italian Network for Research on Psychoses
Brain Sci. 2021, 11(12), 1632; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11121632 - 10 Dec 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2333
Abstract
Neurocognitive deficits and negative symptoms (NS) have a pivotal role in subjects with schizophrenia (SCZ) due to their impact on patients’ functioning in everyday life and their influence on goal-directed behavior and decision-making. P3b is considered an optimal electrophysiological candidate biomarker of neurocognitive [...] Read more.
Neurocognitive deficits and negative symptoms (NS) have a pivotal role in subjects with schizophrenia (SCZ) due to their impact on patients’ functioning in everyday life and their influence on goal-directed behavior and decision-making. P3b is considered an optimal electrophysiological candidate biomarker of neurocognitive impairment for its association with the allocation of attentional resources to task-relevant stimuli, an important factor for efficient decision-making, as well as for motivation-related processes. Furthermore, associations between P3b deficits and NS have been reported. The current research aims to fill the lack of studies investigating, in the same subjects, the associations of P3b with multiple cognitive domains and the expressive and motivation-related domains of NS, evaluated with state-of-the-art instruments. One hundred and fourteen SCZ and 63 healthy controls (HCs) were included in the study. P3b amplitude was significantly reduced and P3b latency prolonged in SCZ as compared to HCs. In SCZ, a positive correlation was found between P3b latency and age and between P3b amplitude and the Attention-vigilance domain, while no significant correlations were found between P3b and the two NS domains. Our results indicate that the effortful allocation of attention to task-relevant stimuli, an important component of decision-making, is compromised in SCZ, independently of motivation deficits or other NS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Relationships between Neural Correlates and Decision Variables and Schizophrenia)
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14 pages, 1481 KiB  
Article
Schizophrenia Patients Show Largely Similar Salience Signaling Compared to Healthy Controls in an Observational Task Environment
by Adam J. Culbreth, Zuzana Kasanova, Thomas J. Ross, Betty J. Salmeron, James M. Gold, Elliot A. Stein and James A. Waltz
Brain Sci. 2021, 11(12), 1610; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11121610 - 06 Dec 2021
Viewed by 2041
Abstract
Recent evidence suggests that the aberrant signaling of salience is associated with psychotic illness. Salience, however, can take many forms in task environments. For example, salience may refer to any of the following: (1) the valence of an outcome, (2) outcomes that are [...] Read more.
Recent evidence suggests that the aberrant signaling of salience is associated with psychotic illness. Salience, however, can take many forms in task environments. For example, salience may refer to any of the following: (1) the valence of an outcome, (2) outcomes that are unexpected, called reward prediction errors (PEs), or (3) cues associated with uncertain outcomes. Here, we measure brain responses to different forms of salience in the context of a passive PE-signaling task, testing whether patients with schizophrenia (SZ) showed aberrant signaling of particular types of salience. We acquired event-related MRI data from 29 SZ patients and 23 controls during the performance of a passive outcome prediction task. Across groups, we found that the anterior insula and posterior parietal cortices were activated to multiple different types of salience, including PE magnitude and heightened levels of uncertainty. However, BOLD activation to salient events was not significantly different between patients and controls in many regions, including the insula, posterior parietal cortices, and default mode network nodes. Such results suggest that deficiencies in salience processing in SZ may not result from an impaired ability to signal salience per se, but instead the ability to use such signals to guide future actions. Notably, no between-group differences were observed in BOLD signal changes associated with PE-signaling in the striatum. However, positive symptom severity was found to significantly correlate with the magnitudes of salience contrasts in default mode network nodes. Our results suggest that, in an observational environment, SZ patients may show an intact ability to activate striatal and cortical regions to rewarding and non-rewarding salient events. Furthermore, reduced deactivation of a hypothesized default mode network node for SZ participants with high levels of positive symptoms, following salient events, point to abnormalities in interactions of the salience network with other brain networks, and their potential importance to positive symptoms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Relationships between Neural Correlates and Decision Variables and Schizophrenia)
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16 pages, 1094 KiB  
Article
Smoking as a Common Modulator of Sensory Gating and Reward Learning in Individuals with Psychotic Disorders
by Alexis E. Whitton, Kathryn E. Lewandowski and Mei-Hua Hall
Brain Sci. 2021, 11(12), 1581; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11121581 - 29 Nov 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1705
Abstract
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 [...] Read more.
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. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Relationships between Neural Correlates and Decision Variables and Schizophrenia)
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12 pages, 12145 KiB  
Article
Resting-State Networks Associated with Behavioral and Self-Reported Measures of Persecutory Ideation in Psychosis
by Lingyan Yu, Rebecca Kazinka, Danielle Pratt, Anita Kwashie and Angus W. MacDonald III
Brain Sci. 2021, 11(11), 1490; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11111490 - 11 Nov 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1532
Abstract
Persecutory ideations are self-referential delusions of being the target of malevolence despite a lack of evidence. Wisner et al. (2021) found that reduced connectivity between the left frontoparietal (lFP) network and parts of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) correlated with increased persecutory behaviors among [...] Read more.
Persecutory ideations are self-referential delusions of being the target of malevolence despite a lack of evidence. Wisner et al. (2021) found that reduced connectivity between the left frontoparietal (lFP) network and parts of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) correlated with increased persecutory behaviors among psychotic patients performing in an economic social decision-making task that can measure the anticipation of a partner’s spiteful behavior. If this pattern could be observed in the resting state, it would suggest a functional-structural prior predisposing individuals to persecutory ideation. Forty-four patients in the early course of a psychotic disorder provided data for resting-state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging across nine brain networks that included the FP network and a similar OFC region. As predicted, we found a significant and negative correlation between the lFP–OFC at rest and the level of suspicious mistrust on the decision-making task using a within-group correlational design. Additionally, self-reported persecutory ideation correlated significantly with the connectivity between the right frontoparietal (rFP) network and the OFC. We extended the previous finding of reduced connectivity between the lFP network and the OFC in psychosis patients to the resting state, and observed a possible hemispheric difference, such that greater rFP–OFC connectivity predicted elevated self-reported persecutory ideation, suggesting potential differences between the lFP and rFP roles in persecutory social interactions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Relationships between Neural Correlates and Decision Variables and Schizophrenia)
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13 pages, 813 KiB  
Article
An Effortful Approach to Social Affiliation in Schizophrenia: Preliminary Evidence of Increased Theta and Alpha Connectivity during a Live Social Interaction
by Lilian Y. Li, Jason Schiffman, Derek K. Hu, Beth A. Lopour and Elizabeth A. Martin
Brain Sci. 2021, 11(10), 1346; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11101346 - 13 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1788
Abstract
People with schizophrenia often experience a profound lack of motivation for social affiliation—a facet of negative symptoms that detrimentally impairs functioning. However, the mechanisms underlying social affiliative deficits remain poorly understood, particularly under realistic social contexts. Here, we investigated subjective reports and electroencephalography [...] Read more.
People with schizophrenia often experience a profound lack of motivation for social affiliation—a facet of negative symptoms that detrimentally impairs functioning. However, the mechanisms underlying social affiliative deficits remain poorly understood, particularly under realistic social contexts. Here, we investigated subjective reports and electroencephalography (EEG) functional connectivity in schizophrenia during a live social interaction. Individuals with schizophrenia (n = 16) and healthy controls (n = 29) completed a face-to-face interaction with a confederate while having EEG recorded. Participants were randomly assigned to either a Closeness condition designed to elicit feelings of closeness through self-disclosure or a Small-Talk condition with minimal disclosure. Compared to controls, patients reported lower positive emotional experiences and feelings of closeness across conditions, but they showed comparably greater subjective affiliative responses for the Closeness (vs. Small-Talk) condition. Additionally, patients in the Closeness (vs. Small-Talk) condition displayed a global increase in connectivity in theta and alpha frequency bands that was not observed for controls. Importantly, greater theta and alpha connectivity was associated with greater subjective affiliative responding, greater negative symptoms, and lower disorganized symptoms in patients. Collectively, findings indicate that patients, because of pronounced negative symptoms, utilized a less efficient, top-down mediated strategy to process social affiliation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Relationships between Neural Correlates and Decision Variables and Schizophrenia)
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9 pages, 712 KiB  
Brief Report
Aberrant Learned Irrelevance in Patients with First-Episode Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorder
by Ryan Sai-Ting Chu, Chung-Mun Ng, Kwun-Nam Chan, Kit-Wa Chan, Ho-Ming Lee, Lai-Ming Hui, Eric Chen and Wing-Chung Chang
Brain Sci. 2021, 11(11), 1370; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11111370 - 20 Oct 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1461
Abstract
Emerging evidence has indicated disrupted learned irrelevance (LIrr), a form of selective attention deficit that may contribute to psychotic symptom formation, in schizophrenia. However, previous research mostly focused on chronic patients. There is a paucity of studies on LIrr in first-episode schizophrenia-spectrum disorder [...] Read more.
Emerging evidence has indicated disrupted learned irrelevance (LIrr), a form of selective attention deficit that may contribute to psychotic symptom formation, in schizophrenia. However, previous research mostly focused on chronic patients. There is a paucity of studies on LIrr in first-episode schizophrenia-spectrum disorder (i.e., schizophrenia and schizophreniform disorder; FES), which were limited by small sample size and have produced mixed results. The current study examined a LIrr effect and its relationship with positive symptom severity in 40 briefly-medicated FES patients and 42 demographically-matched healthy controls using a well-validated computerized LIrr paradigm which has been applied in chronic schizophrenia sample. Positive symptoms were assessed by Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales (PSYRATS). Our results showed that controls demonstrated intact LIrr, with significantly faster learning about previously predictive (relevant) than previously non-predictive (irrelevant) cues. Lack of such normal attention bias towards predictive over non-predictive cues was observed in FES patients, indicating their failure to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant stimuli. Nonetheless, we failed to reveal any significant correlations between learning scores, in particular learning scores for non-predictive cues, and positive symptom measures in FES patients. Learning scores were also not associated with other symptom dimensions, cognitive functions and antipsychotic dose. In conclusion, our findings indicate aberrant LIrr with impaired allocation of attention to relevant versus irrelevant stimuli in briefly-medicated FES patients. Further prospective research is warranted to clarify the longitudinal trajectory of such selective attention deficit and its association with positive symptoms and treatment response in the early course of illness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Relationships between Neural Correlates and Decision Variables and Schizophrenia)
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