The role of avoidance motivation in the relationship between reward sensitivity and depression symptoms in adolescents: An ERP study

How Socially Avoidant Emerging Adults Process Social Feedback during Human-to-Human Interaction after Social Rejection: An Event-Related Potential Study

Social avoidance refers to active non-participation in social activities, which is detrimental to healthy interpersonal interaction for emerging adults. Social rejection is a kind of negative social evaluation from others making people feel social pain. However, how socially avoidant emerging adults process social feedback information after experiencing social rejection has received less attention. The current study aimed to explore the differences in social interaction feedback processing after social rejection between a socially avoidant group (n = 16) and a comparison group (n = 16) in a human-to-human interaction context. Computer game tasks with two types of interaction (cooperation and competition) were used to record the event-related potentials when receiving social interaction feedback in two conditions (social rejection and control condition). The results showed that (1) the socially avoidant group had lower reward positivity amplitudes than the comparison group when receiving social feedback; (2) the socially avoidant group presented larger P300 amplitudes in the social rejection condition than in the control condition, but the comparison group did not; and (3) social rejection evoked more negative N1 amplitudes in the socially avoidant and comparison groups. The findings suggest that socially avoidant emerging adults may have flaws in reward sensitivity during interpersonal interaction, and they might also exert more attentional and emotional resources to social feedback after social rejection.

Reduced neural responses to reward reflect anhedonia and inattention: an ERP study

An inhibited neural response to reward is typical of clinical depression and can predict an individual's overall depressive symptoms. However, the mechanism underlying this are unclear. Previous studies have found that anhedonia and inattention may mediate the relationship between reward sensitivity and depressive symptoms. Therefore, this study aimed to verify the relationship between reward sensitivity and overall depressive symptoms in a depressive tendency sample as well as to explore the mechanism underlying the ability of neural responses to reward to predict overall depressive symptoms via a mediation model. Sixty-four participants (33 with depressive tendencies and 31 without; dichotomized by BDI-II) finished simple gambling tasks while their event-related potential components (ERPs) were recorded and compared. Linear regression was conducted to verify the predictive effect of ERPs on overall depressive symptoms. A multiple mediator model was used, with anhedonia and distractibility as mediators reward sensitivity and overall depressive symptoms. The amplitude of reward positivity (ΔRewP) was greater in healthy controls compared to those with depressive tendencies (p = 0.006). Both the gain-locked ERP component (b = - 1.183, p = 0.007) and the ΔRewP (b = - 0.991, p = 0.024) could significantly negatively predict overall depressive symptoms even after controlling for all anxiety symptoms. The indirect effects of anhedonia and distractibility were significant (both confidence intervals did not contain 0) while the direct effect of reward sensitivity on depressive symptom was not significant (lower confidence interval = - 0.320, upper confidence interval = 0.065). Individuals with depressive tendencies display impaired neural responses to reward compared to healthy controls and reduced individual neural responses to reward may reflect the different biotypes of depression such as anhedonia and inattention.

What Event-Related Potential Tells Us about Brain Function: Child-Adolescent Psychiatric Perspectives

Electroencephalography (EEG) measures neural activation due to various cognitive processes. EEG and event-related potentials (ERPs) are widely used in studies investigating psychopathology and neural substrates of psychiatric diseases in children and adolescents. The present study aimed to review recent ERP studies in child and adolescent psychiatry. ERPs are non-invasive methods for studying synaptic functions in the brain. ERP might be a candidate biomarker in child-adolescent psychiatry, considering its ability to reflect cognitive and behavioral functions in humans. For the EEG study of psychiatric diseases in children and adolescents, several ERP components have been used, such as mismatch negativity, P300, error-related negativity (ERN), and reward positivity (RewP). Regarding executive functions and inhibition in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), P300 latency, and ERN were significantly different in patients with ADHD compared to those in the healthy population. ERN showed meaningful changes in patients with anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Patients with depression showed significantly attenuated RewP compared to the healthy population, which was related to the symptoms of anhedonia.

Major Depression and Brain Asymmetry in a Decision-Making Task with Negative and Positive Feedback

Depressed patients are characterized by hypoactivity of the left and hyperactivity of the right frontal areas during the resting state. Depression is also associated with impaired decision-making, which reflects multiple cognitive, affective, and attentional processes, some of which may be lateralized. The aim of this study was to investigate brain asymmetry during a decision-making task performed in negative and positive feedback conditions in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in comparison to healthy control participants. The electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from 60 MDD patients and 60 healthy participants while performing a multi-stage decision-making task. Frontal, central, and parietal alpha asymmetry were analyzed with EEGlab/ERPlab software. Evoked potential responses (ERPs) showed general lateralization suggestive of an initial right dominance developing into a more complex pattern of asymmetry across different scalp areas as information was processed. The MDD group showed impaired mood prior to performance, and decreased confidence during performance in comparison to the control group. The resting state frontal alpha asymmetry showed lateralization in the healthy group only. Task-induced alpha power and ERP P100 and P300 amplitudes were more informative biomarkers of depression during decision making. Asymmetry coefficients based on task alpha power and ERP amplitudes showed consistency in the dynamical changes during the decision-making stages. Depression was characterized by a lack of left dominance during the resting state and left hypoactivity during the task baseline and subsequent decision-making process. Findings add to understanding of the functional significance of lateralized brain processes in depression.