Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-mwx4w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-20T06:32:16.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Peculiarities of the anhedonia phenomenon in schizophrenic and affective disorders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2023

A. Barkhatova*
Affiliation:
Department of endogenous mental disorders and affective states, Mental health research center, Moscow, Russian Federation
M. Popov
Affiliation:
Department of endogenous mental disorders and affective states, Mental health research center, Moscow, Russian Federation
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
Introduction

Anhedonia is a transdiagnostic psychopathological phenomenon, which is assessed as «core» for several diseases, first of all - schizophrenic and affective spectrum disorders. The problem of clinical features differentiation and identification of anhedonia’s neurobiological mechanisms in the structure of the affective and schizophrenic spectrum disorders is still topical and far from being resolved.

Objectives

The aim of the study was comparative research of the relationship between the features of neurocognitive functioning and the manifestations of anhedonia among patients with disorders of the schizophrenic and affective spectra.

Methods

The sample consisted of 40 patients, 17 patients with schizophrenic spectrum disorders and 23 patients with affective spectrum disorders were examined. We used next psychometric techniques to research anhedonia: Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (RSAS), The Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS), Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS). We used following methods to study neuropsychological features: Dynamic praxis; Color interference test; Arithmetic Tasks; Plot picture; Number of skips and impulsive errors; Reverse and straight rows; Verbal fluency; Number of repetitions; Rey-Osterritz figure.

Results

Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders show lower scores of pleasure anticipation ability and ability to experience pleasure in the social sphere. Neuropsychological indicators of prefrontal cortex dysfunction demonstrate a positive relationship (p = 0.035) with the severity of social anhedonia and a negative relationship with the ability to anticipate pleasure. Thalamus and forehead dysfunction indicators mainly show a negative relationship with the ability to directly experience pleasure. Indicators of dysfunction of the parietal, occipital and temporal lobes have single connections with different parameters of anhedonia.

Conclusions

Manifestations of different parameters of anhedonia demonstrate their heterogeneity among patients with schizophrenic and affective spectrum disorders. Patients with schizophrenic spectrum disorders have greater difficulty with anticipation of pleasure and the ability to experience pleasure in the social sphere. The ability to anticipate pleasure is more strongly related to prefrontal brain function, whereas the ability to experience pleasure directly is related to subcortical brain function.

Disclosure of Interest

None Declared

Type
Abstract
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.