Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds

2026 DPBS Early Career Psychology Research Award Presentation

Reward Processing and Anhedonia in People With Schizophrenia

Samantha Abram, PhD • Assistant Adjunct Professor • Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences • UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences

Learning objectives:
Upon completion of this activity, participants will be able to:

• Describe challenges in studying anhedonia and reward dysfunction across species
• Explain how a translational reward task (Web-Surf) can be used to investigate motivation and reward pursuit in humans and identify benefits of using comparable measures across species
• Explain how reaction times and EEG measures, including the lateralized readiness potential, can be used to investigate decision-making and reward anticipation in people with schizophrenia

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In addition to the Pritzker Building, DPBS members can also watch this event live at Mount Zion (Room B730) and ZSFG (Bldg. 5, Room 7E12), as well as on Zoom (psychiatry.ucsf.edu/watchgrandrounds).

Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds presentations are for educational purposes and intended only for behavioral/mental health professionals and clinical providers.

Continuing education (CE) credit is available for physicians, psychologists, nurses, and therapists who participate in this activity.