The stability of multidimensional subclinical apathy during a pandemic and its relations to psycho-behavioral factors

Abstract

Apathy is a clinical symptom prevalent in many neuropsychiatric pathologies. Subclinical apathy is found in 35% of the general population. Despite high prevalence and negative consequences, underlying mechanisms are poorly understood, perhaps because the concept of apathy is one-dimensional. The current investigation aims to address the incidence of multidimensional apathetic trait in three distinct forms in a student population, to specify its determinants and to evaluate its stability during a global pandemic. Two online surveys, conducted 1 year apart on two separate cohorts of university students, with qualitative measures and validated scales. The final analysis included, respectively, 2789 and 1678 students. The three forms of apathetic trait were present, with the same debilitating consequences as apathetic symptom but independent determinants. Executive apathy was predicted by depressive symptoms, emotional apathy by motivational deficit and initiative apathy comprised a mixed executive-emotional form and a pure deficit of action initiation. The three forms of subclinical apathy remained similar in the context of increased depressive symptoms due to a global pandemic. This study confirmed the presence and independence of three forms of subclinical apathy in healthy students, which remained similar even in the light of increased depressive scores. These results shed light on cognitive and neuronal mechanisms underlying multidimensional apathy, allowing new, targeted treatments.

Initiative apathy trait underlies individual differences in the ability to anticipate and expend cognitive effort in cost-benefit decision-making tasks

“…Initiative apathy is prevalent in many neurological, neurodegenerative, and psychiatric pathologies (Quang et al, 2021;Radakovic et al, 2016;Raffard et al, 2019) but also present in 2.5% of the healthy population (Lafond-Brina & Bonnefond, 2022). At a subclinical level, i.e., at mild degrees of dysfunction, initiative apathy has even been reported to be present in about 6% of the general population and associated with difficulties tied to daily life (Ang et al, 2017;Lafond-Brina & Bonnefond, 2022). Interestingly, fMRI studies have highlighted that initiative apathy is specifically associated with functional abnormalities of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (Le Heron et al, 2018;Pagonabarraga et al, 2015).…”