Knowra Anhedonia Anhedonia Anhedonia is a reduced ability to experience pleasure or interest in activities. It can affect anticipation, motivation, and enjoyment, and occurs in several psychiatric and neurological conditions.
Reward system : A network of brain circuits that supports learning, motivation, and responses to rewarding outcomes. Its disrupted function can reduce pleasure, motivation, or both.
Major depressive disorder : A mood disorder marked by persistent low mood or loss of interest, alongside other symptoms. Loss of interest or pleasure is one of its defining symptoms.
Apathy : A reduction in motivation, goal-directed behavior, or emotional responsiveness. Apathy concerns diminished drive, while anhedonia specifically concerns pleasure or interest.
Transdiagnostic psychiatry : An approach that studies psychological processes shared across multiple psychiatric diagnoses. Anhedonia occurs across diagnoses, raising questions about symptom-based treatment.
Dopamine : A neurotransmitter involved in movement, learning, motivation, and reward-related behavior. Dopamine signaling is more closely tied to wanting and effort than to pleasure itself.
Schizophrenia : A psychiatric disorder involving psychosis, cognitive difficulties, and changes in motivation and emotion. Reduced pleasure and motivation can persist even outside acute psychosis.
Alexithymia : Difficulty identifying and describing one's emotions. Difficulty recognizing pleasure is not the same as lacking the capacity to feel it.
Computational psychiatry : The use of computational models to explain and predict mental processes and psychiatric symptoms. Models can distinguish altered reward learning, valuation, and effort in anhedonia.
Reward prediction error : The difference between an expected outcome and the outcome actually received, used in learning. Altered responses to unexpected rewards may weaken learning from pleasurable experiences.
Parkinson's disease : A progressive neurological disorder involving movement symptoms and changes in several non-motor functions. Reward and motivation changes can accompany its motor symptoms.
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