Determining the Role of Social Reward Learning in Social Anhedonia

University of Alabama at Birmingham152 enrolled

Overview

This is a clinical trial study that aims to evaluate the specificity of the relationship between reduced sensitivity to social reward and social anhedonia at both behavioral and neural levels. Individuals who recently experienced their first-episode psychosis will be recruited. Participants will be randomized 1:1 to motivational interviewing or a time- and format-matched control probe. At pre- and post-probe, participants will perform two social reward learning tasks in the scanner. With this design feature, we will examine the relationship between sensitivity to social reward and reduced subjective experience of social pleasure at both the behavioral and neural levels.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

152

Conditions

Psychosis

Interventions

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 35 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Age 18-35 years * A first episode of a psychotic illness that began within the past three years * Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5 diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizophreniform, or schizoaffective disorder * Taking 2nd generation antipsychotic medications * Estimated premorbid IQ not less than 70 as assessed with the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading * Appropriate for scanning (i.e., no pacemaker or metal implants) and expressed willingness to participate in scanning * Sufficient fluency in English to comprehend testing procedures * Corrected vision of at least 20/30 Exclusion Criteria: * No evidence that substance use makes the diagnosis ambiguous (rule out substance-induced psychosis) * No evidence of moderate or severe alcohol or substance use disorder in the past 3 months * No clinically significant disease based on medical history (e.g., epilepsy) or significant head injury * For females: no current pregnancy * No sedatives or anxiolytics on the day of assessment * No medication change 3 weeks prior to enrollment

Locations (2)

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Birmingham, Alabama, United States

RECRUITING

University of California Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California, United States

RECRUITING

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Response Bias

Response bias is defined as the likelihood of making one response, such as the frequently rewarded stimulus, more than the other response during the perceptual social reward learning task

Time frame: 3 weeks

the number of optimal response

The number of optimal response is defined as the number of responses choosing a stimuli with optimal outcomes (e.g., choosing a good over a neutral machine or choosing a neutral over a bad machine) during the inductive social reward learning task.

Time frame: 3 weeks

fMRI activation levels

fMRI activation is defined as beta weights from general linear model from key regions of interests including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and ventral striatum during the perceptual social reward learning task and the inductive social reward learning task.

Time frame: 3 weeks

Central Contacts

Junghee Lee, PhD

CONTACT

205-934-8205 jungheelee@uabmc.edu

Andrew Meddaugh, BA

CONTACT

205-934-8203 ajmeddaugh@uabmc.edu