Effort and Appetitive Responding in Depression: Examining Deficits in Motivational and Consummatory Stages of Reward Processing Using the Effort-Doors Task.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY GLOBAL OPEN SCIENCE 2023;
3:1073-1082. [PMID:
37881575 PMCID:
PMC10593868 DOI:
10.1016/j.bpsgos.2022.08.002]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2022] [Revised: 07/27/2022] [Accepted: 08/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
Reward sensitivity is a dimensional construct central to understanding the nature of depression. Psychophysiological research on this construct has primarily focused on the reward positivity, an event-related potential (ERP) that indexes consummatory reward sensitivity. This study extended prior research by focusing on ERPs that index the motivational component of reward.
Methods
A novel effort-for-reward task was used to elicit motivational and consummatory ERPs. Groups consisting of 34 participants with depression and 32 participants without depression were compared across a range of reward-related ERPs.
Results
Participants with depression exhibited reduced responsivity to effort completion cues following high effort expenditure, reduced anticipation of rewards after low effort expenditure (i.e., the stimulus preceding negativity), and reduced reward positivity following high effort expenditure. ERPs occurring prior to reward receipt accounted for unique variance in depression status and differentiated between subgroups of depressed individuals.
Conclusions
Findings support the utility of leveraging multiple ERPs that index separate reward processing deficits to better characterize depression and depressive subtypes.
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