# Approaches to Studying Social Motivation in Schizophrenia

> **NIH VA IK2** · VA GREATER LOS ANGELES HEALTHCARE SYSTEM · 2022 · —

## Abstract

Humans are highly social beings that are motivated to seek out, engage in, and maintain interpersonal
relationships with others. This fundamental human drive is referred to as social motivation. However, Veterans
with schizophrenia often experience disruptions in social motivation, resulting in poor social functioning.
Current evidence-based treatments are not sufficiently effective at improving impairments in social motivation
in Veterans with schizophrenia. To inform novel treatment development, new experimental approaches are
needed that will generate a more complete understanding of this pervasive problem. The current proposal
adapts a theoretical framework of social motivation from the National Institutes of Health (NIMH) Research
Domain Criteria (RDoC), which parses social motivation into two major components: social attention and social
memory. Social attention refers to the bias to preferentially attend to social aspects of the environment, and
involves stages of attention capture and sustained attention. Social memory refers to the ability to remember
who we interacted with to establish and maintain relationships, and involves stages of memory encoding and
retrieval. It is not clear the stage at which social motivation impairments begin to emerge for Veterans with
schizophrenia. Additionally, the relative contribution of these two social motivation components on social
functioning is not known. Social functioning in schizophrenia has traditionally been assessed using clinician-
rated interviews, which has limited specificity in understanding the complexities of real-world social functioning.
The overall goal of this proposal is to elucidate the relative contribution of the two social motivation
components (social attention and social memory) and their specific stages of processing on real-world social
functioning in Veterans with schizophrenia. The proposal utilizes an innovative multi-modal approach that
elucidates stages of processing with electroencephalography (EEG), and real-world social functioning with
digital phenotyping via smartphone technology. The results of this study have the potential to advance our
understanding of social motivation in schizophrenia and to identify specific treatment targets that will reduce
the cost and burden associated with this debilitating disorder at the VA.
In addition to addressing the above research goals, this Career Development Award (CDA) will provide the
applicant, Lauren T. Catalano, PhD, with the training in the areas of: (1) translational research in the social
neuroscience of schizophrenia and social motivation; (2) advanced electroencephalography (EEG) techniques;
and (3) digital phenotyping via mobile smartphone technology. The applicant’s career goal is to become a VA-
based psychology clinician researcher, working to improve the social disability experienced by Veterans with
serious mental illness. The training outlined in this CDA application will lay the groundwork for the applicant...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10426044
- **Project number:** 5IK2CX002202-02
- **Recipient organization:** VA GREATER LOS ANGELES HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
- **Principal Investigator:** Lauren Theresa Catalano
- **Activity code:** IK2 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-07-01 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10426044

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10426044, Approaches to Studying Social Motivation in Schizophrenia (5IK2CX002202-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10426044. Licensed CC0.

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