Emotion, Motivation, and Reward Processing in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: What We Know and Where We Need to Go

Theorists and researchers on schizophrenia spectrum dis-orders have long recognized the central role that emo-tional processing may play in these illnesses since the times of Bleuler and Kraepelin.1,2 For example, our cur-rent diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia include refer-ence to disturbances in a number of different aspects of emotional processing, including the ability to display affect either facially or vocally, the ability to display emo-tions that are deemed appropriate to the current context, and the ability to experience or anticipate pleasure. Fur-ther, clinicians have long noted the importance of nega-tive mood and depression in understanding function, course, and outcome in this illness. However, despite the centrality of various aspects of emotional processing in several theories of the development of schizophre