RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Understanding the neurobiological basis of anhedonia in major depressive disorder — evidence for reduced neural activation during reward and loss processing
JF Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience
JO JPN
FD Canadian Medical Association
SP E284
OP E292
DO 10.1503/jpn.210180
VO 47
IS 4
A1 Lavinia A. Steinmann
A1 Katharina Dohm
A1 Janik Goltermann
A1 Maike Richter
A1 Verena Enneking
A1 Marcia Lippitz
A1 Jonathan Repple
A1 Marco Mauritz
A1 Udo Dannlowski
A1 Nils Opel
YR 2022
UL http://jpn.ca/content/47/4/E284.abstract
AB Background: Anhedonia is a key symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD). Anhedonia is associated with aberrant reward processing, but whether it might interfere similarly with the neural processing of aversive stimuli, such as monetary loss, remains unknown. We aimed to investigate potential associations between anhedonia and neural response during reward and loss processing in patients with MDD.Methods: We investigated blood-oxygen-level-dependent response in the orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, insula and basal ganglia during monetary reward and loss processing in 182 patients with MDD, using a card-guessing paradigm. We measured anhedonia with the Social and Physical Anhedonia Scale (SASPAS), and we tested for the main and interaction effects of SASPAS scores and the experimental condition (reward or loss) in a full factorial model.Results: We detected a negative main effect of anhedonia, as well as a significant interaction effect of anhedonia and the experimental condition, on orbitofrontal and insular neural response. Post hoc analyses revealed that the interaction was driven by a significant association between higher anhedonia scores and hypoactivation during loss processing. We observed no significant association between anhedonia and neural response during reward processing.Limitations: This study had a cross-sectional design.Conclusion: Our findings confirmed that altered neural processing in the orbitofrontal cortex and insula is a neurobiological feature of anhedonic symptomatology in people with MDD. The pronounced association between anhedonia and blunted neural response during loss processing supports a broader concept for the neurobiological basis of anhedonia. Hence, MDD with anhedonic features might be characterized by reduced neural response to external stimuli, potentially because of amotivation.