Anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure, and observed changes in psychomotor performance are frequent psychopathological phenomena in major depression with possible common neurobiological mechanisms. Interest, pleasure and reactivity to pleasurable stimuli contribute to movement generation and observable behaviour. Therefore the relationship between anhedonia and psychomotor retardation was studied in 48 depressed patients. Subjectively experienced anhedonia correlated with self-rated but not with observer-rated global severity of depression. There was a significant correlation between anhedonia and psychomotor retardation assessed with the Widöcher Retardation Scale. The results suggest the existence of an empirical relationship between reduced ability to experience pleasure and observable psychomotor retardation in depression. Specific measures of psychomotor phenomena may provide further insights into the relationship between observable behaviour and self-experienced symptoms in depression.

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Psychomotor alterations are fundamental psychopathological features of major depression and observable components of behavior. Human behavior is segmented into action units with a duration of a few seconds. Cognitive and emotional dysfunctions in depression may affect the time structure of movements. Therefore, upper limb movements (total n = 707) of depressed patients and matched healtyh controls were studied using videotaped interviews and frame-by-frame analysis with an accuracy of 40 ms. Both groups displayed a similar temporal distribution, but nonrepetitive action units were significantly shorter (median = 1.16 s) and repetitive units longer (median = 4.92 s) in depressed patients compared to controls (median = 1.93 and 3.01, respectively). Movement alterations were related to anhedonia and subjective severity of depression. Altered time structure of movements represents an observable psychopathological sign and may be relevant for pathophysiological and behavioral aspects in depression.

Objective: To determine the presence of depressive symptoms and major depressive disorders in an epidemiological sample of elderly community residents. The influence of cognitive decline on the performance of instruments screening for depression was additionally examined. Methods: 287 subjects out of the general population aged 60-99 years were personally interviewed with standardized diagnostic tools and completed both the short version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D). The perfomance of the questionnaires was assessed by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis. Results: Using strict diagnostic criteria, the prevalence of major depressive disorders was 3.5%. Single depressive symptoms were far more prevalent. The presence of cognitive decline reduced the specificity of the CES-D, whereas the performance of the GHQ-12 remained unaffected. Conclusions: The study revealed a discrepancy between the prevalence of major depressive disorders and single depressive symptoms in a sample of older community residents. Special attention should be paid to the presence of cognitive decline when screening for depression in the elderly. Cognitive decline may affect the results of screening instruments and lead to erroneous prevalence rates.