Abnormal Frontostriatal Activity During Unexpected Reward Receipt in Depression and Schizophrenia: Relationship to Anhedonia.

Alterations in reward processes may underlie motivational and anhedonic symptoms in depression and schizophrenia. However it remains unclear whether these alterations are disorder-specific or shared, and whether they clearly relate to symptom generation or not. We studied brain responses to unexpected rewards during a simulated slot-machine game in 24 patients with depression, 21 patients with schizophrenia, and 21 healthy controls using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We investigated relationships between brain activation, task-related motivation, and questionnaire rated anhedonia. There was reduced activation in the orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum, inferior temporal gyrus, and occipital cortex in both depression and schizophrenia in comparison with healthy participants during receipt of unexpected reward. In the medial prefrontal cortex both patient groups showed reduced activation, with activation significantly more abnormal in schizophrenia than depression. Anterior cingulate and medial frontal cortical activation predicted task-related motivation, which in turn predicted anhedonia severity in schizophrenia. Our findings provide evidence for overlapping hypofunction in ventral striatal and orbitofrontal regions in depression and schizophrenia during unexpected reward receipt, and for a relationship between unexpected reward processing in the medial prefrontal cortex and the generation of motivational states.Supported by a MRC Clinician Scientist award (G0701911), a Brain and Behaviour Research Foundation Young Investigator, and an Isaac Newton Trust award to Dr Murray; an award to Dr Segarra from the Secretary for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia and the European Union; by the University of Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, funded by a joint award from the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust (G1000183 and 093875/Z/10Z respectively); by awards from the Wellcome Trust (095692) and the Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fund to Professor Fletcher, and by awards from the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (097814/Z/11) and Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. The authors are grateful for the help of clinical staff in CAMEO, in the Cambridge Rehabilitation and Recovery service and Pathways, and in the Cambridge IAPT service, for help with participant recruitment.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npp.2015.37

What's so funny? Using a multidisciplinary approach to understand sitcom success

The sitcom genre is one of the most enduringly popular, yet we still know surprising little about which of the specific elements of sitcoms keep viewers tuning in. In fact, audiences themselves are not sure why they embrace a particular program, with research indicating behaviour often contradicts intention. Numerous studies have highlighted the problematically intertwined relationships between the physiological, cognitive and affective processing systems that contribute to research shortcomings. Furthermore, sitcom research lacks empirical audience response data. However, we can look to research to identify reliable components using measures from a variety of disciplines to offer insight into complementary audience responses. This study aimed to gather and reduce this information to a combination of key measures that best describe, and potentially predict, the components comprising successful sitcoms. Audience response data was collected using the current top sitcoms across the four main US networks –Modern Family (ABC), The Office (NBC), Family Guy (FOX), and Big Bang Theory (CBS). Relatability of plots and characters were assessed with a post-exposure survey, while a typology of humour techniques provided a timeline of humour events for each program, with which data were correlated. Finally, to address the discrepancy between post-exposure audience report and response, dial data were used to establish real time effects during media exposure. New empirical measures were discovered that were predictive of ratings success, revealing reliable tools that should not only prove useful for industry (broadcasting/production of programs) but also for further social sciences research into the causes and effects of humour

The utility of arc length for continuous response measurement of audience responses to humour

Continuous response measures of viewers’ reactions to media stimuli have advantages over retrospective self-report measures (Poels & Dewitte, 2006). However, it is difficult to capture continuous measures using single numbers, such as the mean, velocity (the slope), peak, and area under the curve (Kahneman, 2000). Dynamic models are required to illuminate dynamic interactions between audio-visual presentations and audience responses so as not to lose the rich data that is otherwise lost in static measures aggregated over time (Wang, Lang, and Busemeyer, 2011). This is especially the case for humour, which results from a trajectory over time. First there is the set-up, then there is the pay-off. A mean that averages over both these phases is meaningless. In this article, we propose a new measure for characterizing continuous responses: arc length, which is a measure of the length of the curve, or the length of the journey that a measure undergoes during a certain time period