Using the grip strength effort task to measure reward processing dysfunction in schizophrenia and major depressive disorder

The aims of the Reward Task Optimisation Consortium (RTOC) study (Bilderbeck et al., 2020) were to explore the validity, reliability, and feasibility of a battery of reward processing tasks for the development of new treatments for anhedonia. We report our findings from the Grip Strength Effort Task (GSET), an effort-based decision-making task in which participants chose to either perform easy trials that required less physical effort for low monetary reward or hard trials that required more effort for potentially larger rewards. Thirty-seven participants with schizophrenia (SZ), 40 with major depressive disorder (MDD), and 59 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were administered the task across four European sites. 19% of participants (8.5% HC, 27% SZ, 27.5% MDD) were 'inflexible responders' who always chose hard trials irrespective of the reward amount. MDD participants showed less willingness to exert physical effort for high reward than controls, when inflexible responders were excluded, but no statistically significant differences were observed between SZ participants and controls. Across all participants, willingness to exert effort for high reward negatively correlated with measures of anhedonia. Inflexible responders exhibited higher depressive symptoms and higher anticipation of punishment than other participants. Forty-three participants performed the GSET again after 3-5 weeks and moderate-to-high test-retest reliability was observed. Minimal site effects confirmed operational feasibility of the task in multi-site studies. We conclude that the GSET can provide objective behavioural biomarkers of reward processing dysfunction, but further investigation is needed to understand inflexible responding and its implications on the task's design and interpretation.

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Publication Details

Journal
Neuroscience Applied
Published
2025-01-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nsa.2025.105524
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Schizophrenia research and treatment
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.47

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article

Using the grip strength effort task to measure reward processing dysfunction in schizophrenia and major depressive disorder

Stephane Pollentier, Michael M. Plichta, Anke Sambeth, Darrel J. Pemberton et al.
1 citations
Neuroscience Applied
Schizophrenia research and treatment
1.47
article

Using the grip strength effort task to measure reward processing dysfunction in schizophrenia and major depressive disorder

Stephane Pollentier, Michael M. Plichta, Anke Sambeth, Darrel J. Pemberton, Athanasia Liozidou, Thérèse van Amelsvoort, Jane Tiller, Shannon N. Millard, O. Grimm, Ailidh Finlayson, Dennis Hernaus, Víctor Pérez, Andreas Reif, Daniel Umbricht, Abigail B. Abrahams, Matilde Elices, Georgios Papazisis, Asad Waqar Malik, Gerard R. Dawson, Amy Beckenstrom, Karla V. Allebrandt, Stella Voulgaropoulou, Charis Styliadis, W. J. Martin
article en
1 citations

Abstract

The aims of the Reward Task Optimisation Consortium (RTOC) study (Bilderbeck et al., 2020) were to explore the validity, reliability, and feasibility of a battery of reward processing tasks for the development of new treatments for anhedonia. We report our findings from the Grip Strength Effort Task (GSET), an effort-based decision-making task in which participants chose to either perform easy trials that required less physical effort for low monetary reward or hard trials that required more effort for potentially larger rewards. Thirty-seven participants with schizophrenia (SZ), 40 with major depressive disorder (MDD), and 59 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were administered the task across four European sites. 19% of participants (8.5% HC, 27% SZ, 27.5% MDD) were 'inflexible responders' who always chose hard trials irrespective of the reward amount. MDD participants showed less willingness to exert physical effort for high reward than controls, when inflexible responders were excluded, but no statistically significant differences were observed between SZ participants and controls. Across all participants, willingness to exert effort for high reward negatively correlated with measures of anhedonia. Inflexible responders exhibited higher depressive symptoms and higher anticipation of punishment than other participants. Forty-three participants performed the GSET again after 3-5 weeks and moderate-to-high test-retest reliability was observed. Minimal site effects confirmed operational feasibility of the task in multi-site studies. We conclude that the GSET can provide objective behavioural biomarkers of reward processing dysfunction, but further investigation is needed to understand inflexible responding and its implications on the task's design and interpretation.

Neuroscience AppliedVol. 4
Goethe University Frankfurt (DE), Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany) (DE), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (ES), European University Cyprus (CY), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR), Maastricht University (NL), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (ES), Boehringer Ingelheim (Egypt) (EG), University Hospital Frankfurt (DE), Boehringer Ingelheim (China) (CN), Boehringer Ingelheim (Australia) (AU), Cognitive Research (United States) (US)
Roche
Openalex Percentile: Top 17%
Schizophrenia research and treatment
1.47
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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