Background and Hypothesis Motivation deficit is a hallmark of schizophrenia that has a strong impact on their daily life. An alteration of reward processing has been repeatedly highlighted in schizophrenia, but to what extent it involves a deficient amplification of reward representation through conscious processing remains unclear. Indeed, patients with schizophrenia exhibit a disruption of conscious processing, whereas unconscious processing appears to be largely preserved. Study Design To further explore the nature of motivational deficit in schizophrenia and the implication of consciousness disruption in this symptom, we used a masking paradigm testing motivation both under conscious and unconscious conditions in patients with schizophrenia (n = 31) and healthy controls (n = 32). Participants were exposed to conscious or subliminal coin pictures representing money at stake and were subsequently asked to perform an effort-task by squeezing a handgrip as hard as possible to win this reward. Study Results We observed a preserved effect of unconscious monetary rewards on force production in both groups, without any significant difference between them. By contrast, in the conscious condition, patients with schizophrenia were less sensitive to rewards than controls. Our results confirm that unconscious incentives have effects on exerted forces in the general population, and demonstrate that patients with schizophrenia exhibit a dissociation between an impaired conscious motivation and a preserved unconscious motivation. Conclusions These findings suggest the existence of several steps in motivational processes that can be differentially affected and might have implication for patient care.

中文翻译：

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精神分裂症中保留的无意识处理：动机的案例

背景和假设动机缺陷是精神分裂症的一个标志，对他们的日常生活有很大影响。在精神分裂症中，奖赏处理的改变已被反复强调，但它在多大程度上涉及通过意识处理对奖赏表征的放大不足仍不清楚。事实上，精神分裂症患者表现出意识处理的破坏，而无意识处理似乎在很大程度上得以保留。研究设计 为了进一步探讨精神分裂症动机缺陷的本质以及这种症状中意识破坏的含义，我们使用了掩蔽范式测试精神分裂症患者 (n = 31) 和健康对照 (n = 32）。参与者有意识或潜意识地接触到代表金钱的硬币图片，随后被要求通过尽可能用力握紧手柄来完成一项努力任务，以赢得奖励。研究结果 我们观察到无意识的金钱奖励对两组人的力量产生都有保留的影响，但它们之间没有任何显着差异。相比之下，在清醒状态下，精神分裂症患者对奖励的敏感度低于对照组。我们的结果证实，无意识激励对一般人群的用力有影响，并证明精神分裂症患者表现出受损的意识动机和保留的无意识动机之间的分离。