Social affective forecasting and the default mode network in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: A daily diary and fMRI study

Social anhedonia (SA) is a well-established symptom of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSDs), but its etiology remains unknown. Research suggests that the ability to accurately predict future emotions in real-world social contexts—i.e., social affective forecasting (SAF) accuracy—is impaired in SSDs, particularly for anticipated negative emotions, and is associated with SA. However, little is understood about the neural basis of this phenomenon. Alterations in the default mode network (DMN)—a network of brain regions recruited during stimulus-independent, future oriented thinking—has been observed in SSDs. Thus, altered DMN connectivity may be contributing to reduced SAF accuracy and SA. In a sample of individuals with and without SSDs, we tested associations between SAF, SA, and functional connectivity within the DMN. Participants completed a daily diary assessing anticipatory and consummatory emotions associated with their social interactions to derive indices of SAF accuracy, and underwent resting-state fMRI to assess functional connectivity within three subsystems of the DMN. We find that the SSD group demonstrated hypoconnectivity within the midline core, but this was not associated with SAF accuracy of negative or positive emotions. Exploratory analyses indicated that social pleasure moderated the association between core connectivity and SAF accuracy for positive emotions, such that this positive association was observed only among individuals with low levels of social pleasure. Taken together, these findings suggest that although aberrations in DMN connectivity may characterize SSDs, its relevance to SAF may depend on individual differences in SA and social pleasure, underscoring the need to clarify how these constructs shape prospection.