Reinforcement learning as an intermediate phenotype in psychosis? Deficits sensitive to illness stage but not associated with polygenic risk of schizophrenia in the general population.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder in which the causal relations between risk genes and observed clinical symptoms are not well understood and the explanatory gap is too wide to be clarified without considering an intermediary level. Thus, we aimed to test the hypothesis of a pathway from molecular polygenic influence to clinical presentation occurring via deficits in reinforcement learning.

Methods

We administered a reinforcement learning task (Go/NoGo) that measures reinforcement learning and the effect of Pavlovian bias on decision making. We modelled the behavioural data with a hierarchical Bayesian approach (hBayesDM) to decompose task performance into its underlying learning mechanisms. Study 1 included controls (n = 29, F|M = 0.81), At Risk Mental State fo

SUBMITTER: Montagnese M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7594641 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature