PROOF JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL REGULATORS & HOMEOSTATIC AGENTS Vol. 28, no. 4, 0-0 (2014) 0393-974X (2014) Copyright © by BIOLIFE, s.a.s. This publication and/or article is for individual use only and may not be further reproduced without written permission from the copyright holder. Unauthorized reproduction may result in inancial and other penalties DISCLOSURE: ALL AUTHORS REPORT NO CONFLICTS OF INTEREST RELEVANT TO THIS ARTICLE. 639 Key words: anhedonia, irst episode psychosis, functional neuroimaging, post-traumatic stress disorder Mailing address: Prof. Giulio Vidotto, Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Via Venezia 8, 35137 Padova, Italy Tel.: +39 0498276683 Fax: +39 0498276600 e-mail: giulio.vidotto@unipd.it The aim of this study was to analyze neural responses to disgusting images in individuals with irst episode psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although anhedonia is a common symptom in both disorders we expected that they would be associated with different neurophysiological abnormalities and patterns of activation. We recruited three groups of participants: 13 individuals with irst episode psychosis, 10 individuals with PTSD who had survived the April 2009 L’Aquila earthquake and 25 healthy controls matched for age and education. All individuals participated in a functional imaging experiment in which they watched six alternating blocks of disgusting and scrambled images whilst undergoing scanning with a General Electric 1.5T whole-body scanner. We estimated individuals’ beta-weights, extracting 22 clusters corresponding to 22 signiicant areas. Findings were consistent with other neuroimaging studies; the active areas (i.e. amygdala, insula, inferior and medial frontal gyrus) have consistently been associated with emotional experiences. Statistical analysis revealed important group differences in intensity and direction (positive or negative) of signal from baseline during disgusting condition. Although these results are preliminary they show that functional neuroimaging techniques may make a valuable contribution to differential diagnosis of irst episode psychosis and PTSD. Anhedonia is the loss of the capacity to experience pleasure, i.e. the inability to feel and understand pleasure. It has been proposed that anhedonia is the result of a dysfunction in a basic neurophysiological function and a trait marker of vulnerability that precedes and contributes to development of schizophrenia (1). Anhedonia is also known to inhibit successful rehabilitation from schizophrenic disorder and impair social functioning (2). In humans the ability to experience the pleasant or unpleasant nature of stimuli and situations has evolved beyond immediate survival and supports a variety of social behaviours (3). Disgust is a very basic emotion which has an important survival value for conspeciics. In its most basic and primitive form, disgust (‘core disgust’) (4) indicates that something (e.g. food) that the individual tastes or smells is bad and, perhaps, dangerous (5). Recent studies suggest that the subcortical systems, particularly the insula, contain neural populations that become active when individuals experience disgust or observe it in others. These studies also show that hedonic processes (e.g. expression of pleasure and appreciation of beauty) play an important role in social interaction NEURAL CORRELATES OF OBSERVATION OF DISGUSTING IMAGES IN SUBJECTS WITH FIRST EPISODE PSYCHOSIS AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER G. VIDOTTO 1 , A. CATALUCCI 2 , R. RONCONE 3 , M.C. PINO 3 and M. MAZZA 3 1 Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padova, Italy; 2 Department of Neuroradiology, University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy; 3 Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy Received August 12, 2013 – Accepted August 28, 2014