Translational Assessment of Reward and Motivational Deficits in Psychiatric Disorders

Abstract

Deficits in reward and motivation are common symptoms characterizing several psychiatric and neurological disorders. Such deficits may include anhedonia, defined as loss of pleasure, as well as impairments in anticipatory pleasure, reward valuation, motivation/effort, and reward learning. This chapter describes recent advances in the development of behavioral tasks used to assess different aspects of reward processing in both humans and non-human animals. While earlier tasks were generally developed independently with limited cross-species correspondence, a newer generation of translational tasks has emerged that are theoretically and procedurally analogous across species and allow parallel testing, data analyses, and interpretation between human and rodent behaviors. Such enhanced conformity between cross-species tasks will facilitate investigation of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying discrete reward and motivated behaviors and is expected to improve our understanding and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by reward and motivation deficits.

Individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related cues and pleasant stimuli in young smokers

“…Third, the two groups of smokers did not differ on any self-report of behavioral measures. Thus, our neurobiological measure still needs to be validated against other objective measures of reactivity to rewarding stimuli and/or behavioral measures of reward experience (Der-Avakian et al, 2016; Pizzagalli et al, 2008). Fourth, many of the smokers in this study were college students, which limits the generalizability of our findings to the larger population of young smokers.…”

Characterization of Amphetamine, Methylphenidate, Nicotine, and Atomoxetine on Measures of Attention, Impulsive Action, and Motivation in the Rat: Implications for Translational Research

“…For this reason both tasks were included in the current test platform. Finally, since motivation for the primary reward of these tasks is a critical determinant in overall performance, as is efficient control of motor function, the effect of each drug on responding for food under a progressive schedule of reinforcement (Hodos, 1961;Der-Avakian et al, 2016), and locomotor activity, was also assessed.…”

The Psychopharmacology of Effort-Related Decision Making: Dopamine, Adenosine, and Insights into the Neurochemistry of Motivation

“…The recursive interaction between human and animal studies has led to the development of formal animal models of motivational pathology that employ tasks assessing effort-based decision making (Salamone et al, 2006Simpson et al, 2011Simpson et al, , 2012Markou et al, 2013;Bailey et al, 2016;Der-Avakian et al, 2016). This research has involved an assessment of the effort-related effects in rodents of conditions associated with depression, anergia, fatigue, and apathy in humans, as well as the evaluation of potential drug treatments.…”