Negative Symptoms and Reward Disturbances in Schizophrenia Before and After Antipsychotic Monotherapy

Background. Negative symptoms (NS) are a central part of the symptomatology of schizophrenia, which is highly correlated to the functional outcome. Disturbances of the brain reward system are suggested to be central in the pathogenesis of NS by decreasing motivation and hedonic experiences. In this study, we compared reward-related brain activity in patients improving and not improving in NS after treatment with amisulpride. Methods. Thirty-nine...