Informaciones Psiquiátricas 2025 - nº 258 59 Introduction Delusions, defined as false beliefs that are held with firm conviction despite evidence to the contrary, are among the most characteristic and troubling symptoms of schizophrenia. The search for their neurobiological origins has produced several theories, one of the most influential being the aberrant salience hypothesis. This theory, links delusions to irregular dopamine function. Specifically, it argues that excess dopamine activity leads the brain to assign undue importance, or salience, to otherwise neutral stimuli. It is known that salience is attributed to stimuli in the environment by means of so called reward prediction error (RPE) signaling, the brain’s mechanism for signaling when an outcome is better or worse than expected. Although prior studies have examined RPE in schizophrenia, this study is the first to investigate whether abnormal RPE signals are associated with delusions and referential thinking, phenomena central to the experience of psychosis. This study aimed to study a large sample of patients’ brain responses to prediction errors during a monetary reward task in relation to delusion and to the experience of referentiality.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzkyOTU=