Liu, WH;
Roiser, JP;
Wang, LZ;
Zhu, YH;
Huang, J;
Neumann, DL;
Shum, DH;
... Chan, RC; + view all
(2016)
Anhedonia is associated with blunted reward sensitivity in first-degree relatives of patients with major depression.
Journal of Affective Disorders
, 190
pp. 640-648.
10.1016/j.jad.2015.10.050.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Anhedonia is a cardinal feature of major depression and is hypothesized to be driven by low motivation, in particular blunted reward sensitivity. It has been suggested to be a marker that represents a genetic predisposition to this disorder. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this heightened risk in unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with major depression. We previously demonstrated abnormal reward biases in acutely depressed patients. The present study aimed to examine the development of reward bias in first-degree relatives of patients with major depression. METHODS: Forty-seven first-degree relatives of patients with major depression (26 females, age 18-52) and 60 healthy controls with no family history of depression (34 females, age 21-48) were recruited. A probabilistically rewarded difficult visual discrimination task, in which participants were instructed about the contingencies, was used to assess blunted reward sensitivity. A response bias towards the more frequently rewarded stimulus (termed "reward bias") was the primary outcome variable in this study. Participants also completed self-reported measures of anhedonia and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, relatives of patients with major depression with sub-clinical depressive symptoms displayed a blunted reward bias. Relatives without symptoms displayed largely intact motivational processing on both self-report and experimental measures. The degree of anhedonia was associated with attenuated reward bias in first-degree relatives of patients with major depression, especially in those with sub-clinical symptoms. LIMITATIONS: The study did not include a depressed patient group, which restricted our ability to interpret the observed group differences. CONCLUSIONS: Blunted reward sensitivity may be largely manifested in a subgroup of relatives with high levels of depressive symptoms.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Anhedonia is associated with blunted reward sensitivity in first-degree relatives of patients with major depression |
| Location: | Netherlands |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jad.2015.10.050 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2015.10.050 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2016. This manuscript version is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Non-derivative 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non-commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Further details about CC BY licences are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. |
| Keywords: | Anhedonia, Depression, Reward, Risk factors |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1483278 |
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