Neurocognitive predictors of self‐reported reward responsivity and approach motivation in depression: A data‐driven approach

Abstract

Background: Individual differences in reward-related processes, such as reward responsivity and approach motivation, appear to play a role in the nature and course of depression. Prior work suggests that cognitive biases for valenced information may contribute to these reward processes.Yet there is little work examining how biased attention, processing, and memory for positively-and negatively-valenced information may be associated with reward-related processes in samples with depression symptoms. Methods:We used a data-driven, machine-learning (elastic net) approach to identify the best predictors of self-reported reward-related processes using multiple tasks of attention, processing, and memory for valenced information measured across behavioral, eye tracking, psychophysiological, and computational modeling approaches (N = 202). Participants were adults (ages 18 -35) who ranged in depression symptom severity from mild to severe.Results: Models predicted between 5.0-12.2% and 9.7-28.0% of held-out test sample variance in approach motivation and reward responsivity, respectively. Low self-referential processing of positively-valenced information was the most robust, albeit modest, predictor of low approach motivation and reward responsivity. Conclusions: Self-referential processing of positive information is the strongest predictor of reward responsivity and approach motivation in a sample ranging from mild to severe depression symptom severity. Experiments are now needed to clarify the causal relationship between self-referential processing of positively-valenced information and reward processes in depression.

Self-Referential Processing and Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Moreover, moderator analyses revealed that the respective effect sizes became progressively larger as depressive symptom severity increased, suggesting that depressed individuals' devaluation of positivity and facilitatory endorsement of negativity becomes more pronounced as symptom severity increased. This is consistent with prior work demonstrating that depressed individuals process positive information in a biased manner (Hsu et al, 2020;McNamara et al, 2021) and may point to a more specific mechanism of devaluation of the self, as initially hypothesized when reward devaluation theory was introduced (Winer & Salem, 2016). By comparison, depressed individuals did not differ from nondepressed individuals on the endorsement of positive words and the endorsement of negative words when describing others.…”

Self-processing in relation to emotion and reward processing in depression

“…Patients with depression show reduced activation of both reward and self-related areas of the brain when processing positive stimuli (Northoff, 2007; Northoff & Hayes, 2011). Reduced self-referential processing of positive information has also been identified as the most robust predictor of low approach motivation and reward responsivity (Hsu et al, 2020). Increased sensitivity to punishing feedback may sustain preferential processing of negative information about the self, reinforcing negative self-schema.…”

Self-referential processing in individuals with nonsuicidal self-injury: An fMRI study

“…Consistent with our hypothesis, individuals engaging in NSSI are more likely to rate negative adjectives as more relevant to themselves and positive adjectives as less relevant to themselves compared with the controls. Considerable evidence indicates that biased self-referential processing is closely related to dysfunctional coping strategies ( Hsu et al, 2020 , Mennin and Fresco, 2013 ). In particular, negative self-referential processing facilitates cognitive and emotion regulation deficits and, in turn, leads to maladaptive behavioral responses to unwanted emotional stimuli ( Frewen et al, 2020 , Mennin and Fresco, 2013 , Renna et al, 2017 ).…”