Differentiation of States and Causes of Apathy

Apathy is best characterized in behavioural terms a an absence of responsiveness to stimuli as demonstrated by a lack of self-initiated action. The main thesis of this chapter is that there are different kinds of apathy. Each is separable on the basis of both the anatomical regions and the psychological mechanisms involved. The chapter is organized into four main sections written with the aim of establishing support for this thesis. In the first section. definitions of apathy are reviewed, and we introduce our approach to defining apathy states. The second section describes common causes of apathy and outlines the neuroanatomical regions involved. In the third section, we present our proposed conceptualization of the different kinds of apathy. The fourth section contains a review of what is known about treatment interventions for apathy.