Reward anticipation is a component of motivation that has been intensely studied in the past 20 years. Using simple functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks like the Monetary Incentive Delay task (MID), researchers were able to assess the neural underpinnings of reward anticipation in various stages of the psychosis continuum. The psychosis continuum is a conceptual framework that hypothesizes that psychotic symptoms and experiences exist with various degrees of intensity in a spectrum ranging from health to chronic schizophrenia. The ventral striatum, in particular, has been robustly associated with reward anticipation in healthy individuals and has been brought forth as a potential marker or negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Accordingly, decreased ventral striatal activity has been shown in patients with schizophrenia, with a specific link with apathy symptoms. This deficit has not been clearly defined in other stages of the continuum, like schizotypy. Furthermore, little is known about the cortico-striatal networks at work during reward anticipation in the different stages of the psychosis continuum.

The aim of this thesis was to replicate previous activation analyses on reward anticipation, as well as to explore task-based functional connectivity in healthy participants, in individuals with high levels of schizotypy and in patients with schizophrenia. To do so, all participants performed a variant of the MID while undergoing event-related fMRI. Schizotypy was evaluated with the Schizotypy Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) and negative symptoms were assessed using the Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS).