Psychiatric symptoms influence reward‐seeking and loss‐avoidance decision‐making through common and distinct computational processes
Aim Psychiatric symptoms are often accompanied by impairments in decision‐making to attain rewards and avoid losses. However, due to the complex nature of mental disorders (e.g., high comorbidity), symptoms that are specifically associated with deficits in decision‐making remain unidentified. Furthe...
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Published in | Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences Vol. 75; no. 9; pp. 277 - 285 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Melbourne
John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
01.09.2021
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Aim
Psychiatric symptoms are often accompanied by impairments in decision‐making to attain rewards and avoid losses. However, due to the complex nature of mental disorders (e.g., high comorbidity), symptoms that are specifically associated with deficits in decision‐making remain unidentified. Furthermore, the influence of psychiatric symptoms on computations underpinning reward‐seeking and loss‐avoidance decision‐making remains elusive. Here, we aim to address these issues by leveraging a large‐scale online experiment and computational modeling.
Methods
In the online experiment, we recruited 1900 non‐diagnostic participants from the general population. They performed either a reward‐seeking or loss‐avoidance decision‐making task, and subsequently completed questionnaires about psychiatric symptoms.
Results
We found that one trans‐diagnostic dimension of psychiatric symptoms related to compulsive behavior and intrusive thought (CIT) was negatively correlated with overall decision‐making performance in both the reward‐seeking and loss‐avoidance tasks. A deeper analysis further revealed that, in both tasks, the CIT psychiatric dimension was associated with lower preference for the options that recently led to better outcomes (i.e. reward or no‐loss). On the other hand, in the reward‐seeking task only, the CIT dimension was associated with lower preference for recently unchosen options.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that psychiatric symptoms influence the two types of decision‐making, reward‐seeking and loss‐avoidance, through both common and distinct computational processes. |
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Bibliography: | These authors contributed equally. |
ISSN: | 1323-1316 1440-1819 |
DOI: | 10.1111/pcn.13279 |