The brain degeneration in Parkinson’s disease can take away motivation – a condition called clinical apathy. Though apathy is one symptom, it has different components. It creates a feeling of effort, diminishes our sense of pleasure, reduces our ability to plan ahead, affects arousal, and makes us more ‘content’ to stay in the status quo. We propose a framework for thinking about these components (Le Heron et al, Trends in Neurosciences 2025). We propose that the components affect people differently, have different mathematical formulations, and load onto different neurochemical systems in the brain, allowing a more patient-specific approach to treating apathy.
