Using a neurobiologically valid model of reward we aim at studying how behavioral deficits in reward result from a dysfunction in schizophrenia within the brain reward system and how this candidate endophenotype is modulated by interventions with a D2 blocker. The long-term goal is to construct a model that uses functional pathophysiology to predict patient response to treatment.
The study is designed as a 6 week case-control follow-up study of 30 antipsychotic-naïve first-episode patients with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls matched with regard to age, gender, and parental socioeconomic
status. All subjects will be examined with a diagnostic interview (SCAN, Schedule for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry), medical and family history, and physical examination before inclusion. At baseline and follow up all subjects will be examined with fMRI at the Functional Image Unit, Glostrup. We will use a variant of the monetary incentive delay task to elicit striatal activation in response to cues of monetary gain and loss. Patients will further be examined with clinical, validated rating scales to measure psychopathology, the level of function, subjective well-being, and side-effects. The version of the monetary incentive
delay task will be validated in a pilot project on 14 healthy controls. In all the healthy controls we further plan to look at the relation between reward related brain activity and personality traits.