Affective personality predictors of disrupted reward learning and pursuit in major depressive disorder

Abstract

Anhedonia, the diminished anticipation and pursuit of reward, is a core symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD). Trait behavioral activation (BA), as a proxy for anhedonia, and behavioral inhibition (BI) may moderate the relationship between MDD and reward-seeking. The present studies probed for reward learning deficits, potentially due to aberrant BA and/or BI, in active or remitted MDD individuals compared to healthy controls (HC). Active MDD (Study 1) and remitted MDD (Study 2) participants completed the modified monetary incentive delay task (mMIDT), a behavioral reward-seeking task whose response window parameters were individually titrated to theoretically elicit equivalent accuracy between groups. Participants completed the BI Scale and BA Reward-Responsiveness and Drive Scales. Despite individual titration, active MDD participants won significantly less money than HCs. Higher Reward-Responsiveness scores predicted more won; Drive and BI were not predictive. Remitted MDD participants’ performance did not differ from controls’, and trait BA and BI measures did not predict r-MDD performance. These results suggest that diminished reward-responsiveness may contribute to decreased motivation and reward pursuit during active MDD, but that reward learning is intact in remission. Understanding individual reward processing deficits in MDD may inform personalized intervention addressing anhedonia and motivation deficits in select MDD patients.

Affective traits and history of depression are related to ventral striatum connectivity

“…Overall, the present findings suggest that VSs and VSi networks are related to affective personality traits that have previously been demonstrated to differentiate disease status (DelDonno et al, 2015) and predict MDD risk (Kasch et al, 2002). Previously, response to rewarding stimuli has been linked to BAS-RR (Kasch et al, 2002) and VSi activation in active MDD (Epstein et al, 2006).…”

“…less money earned; DelDonno et al, 2015), and worse depressive symptoms. VSi-visual-somatomotor connectivity may deteriorate over the course of illness and could partially explain why depressed individuals have significantly lower BAS-RR scores (DelDonno et al, 2015) than early-course rMDD individuals. It is possible that VSi-visual-somatomotor network connectivity could predict MDD diagnosis, illness severity, or likelihood of relapse, just as BAS scores are able to do (Kasch et al, 2002; Shankman & Klein, 2003; McFarland et al, 2006).…”

“…Lack of VSi-visual-somatomotor integration could lessen an individual's interest or willingness to interact with the environment, resulting in lower reward-responsiveness, decreased performance on reward-seeking tasks (e.g. less money earned; DelDonno et al, 2015), and worse depressive symptoms. VSi-visual-somatomotor connectivity may deteriorate over the course of illness and could partially explain why depressed individuals have significantly lower BAS-RR scores (DelDonno et al, 2015) than early-course rMDD individuals.…”

“…However, evidence of differences between individuals with rMDD and healthy controls (HC) is mixed, specifically with reward task performance. For example, young adults with rMDD exhibited intact reward responsiveness performance compared to HC, while active MDD individuals exhibited deficits (DelDonno et al, 2015). In another study, however, individuals with rMDD responded slower than HCs during reward anticipation (Dichter et al, 2012) and failed to develop a response bias towards rewarding stimuli (Pizzagalli et al, 2009; Pechtel et al, 2013; Whitton et al, 2016).…”

“…First, we examined VS connectivity across groups in relation to self-reported behavioral approach (reward-responsiveness and drive) and inhibition to probe whether VS connectivity dimensionally relates to affective and motivation-relevant personality traits. Reward-responsiveness, drive, and behavioral inhibition (Carver & White, 1994) may better capture dimensional risks for illness, given previous findings that these affective traits did not differ between individuals with rMDD and HCs (DelDonno et al, 2015). Second, despite mixed findings on SEN functioning in active MDD, we hypothesized increased connectivity between the VS and SEN in rMDD compared to HC individuals.…”