Neuropsychological functioning and social anhedonia: results from a community high-risk study

Social anhedonia has shown promise as a vulnerability marker for schizophrenia-spectrum pathology. Validity data have come, in part, from findings indicating that cognitive deficits occurring in schizophrenia are also evident in individuals with elevated levels of social anhedonia. However, prior research on this topic has been limited because it has been based almost exclusively on the study of selective samples of college students. The present article reports baseline findings of neuropsychological functioning in social anhedonics and controls from a representative community sample. Data on a wide array of neuropsychological abilities from 18-19 year-old participants with (n = 85) vs. without (n = 87) elevated levels of social anhedonia were analyzed. We hypothesized that, compared to controls, social anhedonics would show impairments in memory and sustained attention. Additionally, we sought to determine if more severe cognitive impairment in anhedonics was associated with greater schizophrenia-spectrum pathology and poorer overall functioning. Compared to controls, socially anhedonic participants performed more poorly on two visual-spatial memory tasks and a test of visual-spatial construction. The groups did not statistically differ on any of the other neuropsychological measures including general cognitive ability and sustained attention. Group differences were not the result of depression, bipolar or substance abuse disorders. Neuropsychological functioning showed little relationship to current clinical symptoms and functioning. Longitudinal assessment of these participants as they move through the risk period should provide important insights into the neuropsychological correlates of the schizophrenia prodrome.