Abstract
Apathy, a quantitative reduction in goal-directed behavior, is a prevalent symptom dimension with a negative impact on functional outcome in various neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and depression. The aim of this review is to show that interview-based assessment of apathy in humans and observation of spontaneous rodent behavior in an ecological setting can serve as an important complementary approach to already existing task-based assessment, to study and understand the neurobiological bases of apathy. We first discuss the paucity of current translational approaches regarding animal equivalents of psychopathological assessment of apathy. We then present the existing evaluation scales for the assessment of apathy in humans and propose five sub-domains of apathy, namely self-care, social interaction, exploration, work/education and recreation. Each of the items in apathy evaluation scales can be assigned to one of these sub-domains. We then show that corresponding, well-validated behavioral readouts exist for rodents and that, indeed, three of the five human apathy sub-domains have a rodent equivalent. In conclusion, the translational ecological study of apathy in humans and rodents is possible and will constitute an important approach to increase the understanding of the neurobiological bases of apathy and the development of novel treatments.
Highlights
Apathy has initially been defined as a lack of motivation (Marin, 1990)
Apathy, which is defined in the present review as a quantitative reduction in goal-directed behavior, is a prevalent symptom dimension that cuts across disease categories and has a negative impact on the functional outcome of many neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and depression
Considerable effort has been made in the assessment of apathy via task performances
Summary
Apathy has initially been defined as a lack of motivation (Marin, 1990). A more behavioral definition has been introduced, defining apathy as a quantitative reduction in goaldirected behavior (Levy and Dubois, 2006). Apathy is a prevalent symptom dimension in psychiatric and neurologic disorders (Marin, 1990; Levy and Dubois, 2006; Foussias and Remington, 2010). In psychiatry, it can be observed in schizophrenia (Blanchard and Cohen, 2006), major depression (Marin et al, 1993), and as a consequence of drug abuse (Lynskey and Hall, 2000). Apathy has been observed independently of other psychiatric symptoms; for example in basal ganglia disease (Levy and Czernecki, 2006; Starkstein et al, 2009), Alzheimer’s disease (Starkstein et al, 2001; Robert et al, 2010) and stroke (Jorge et al, 2010; Caeiro et al, 2013)
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