Wen-Hua Liu1, Jonathan P Roiser2, Ling-Zhi Wang3, Yu-Hua Zhu3, Jia Huang4, David L Neumann5, David H K Shum5, Eric F C Cheung6, Raymond C K Chan7. 1. Faculty of Health Management, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China; Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China. 2. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, UK. 3. Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China. 4. Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. 5. Menzies Health Institute Queensland and School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. 6. Castle Peak Hospital, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China. 7. Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Electronic address: rckchan@psych.ac.cn.
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.
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 depressedpatients. 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-clinicaldepressive 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 depressedpatient 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.
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