The ability to differentiate between rewards and losses is critical for motivated action, and aberrant reward and loss processing has been associated with psychopathology. The reward positivity (RewP) and feedback negativity (FN) are ERPs elicited by monetary gains and losses, respectively, and are promising individual difference measures. However, few studies have reported on the psychometric properties of the RewP and FN-crucial characteristics necessary for valid individual difference measures. The current study examined the internal consistency and 1-week test-retest reliability of the RewP and FN as elicited by the doors task among 59 young adults. The RewP, FN, and their difference score (ΔRewP) all showed significant correlations between Time 1 and Time 2. The RewP and FN also achieved acceptable internal consistency at both time points within 20 trials using both Cronbach's α and a generalizability theory-derived dependability measure. Internal consistency for ΔRewP was notably weaker at both time points, which is expected from two highly intercorrelated constituent scores. In conclusion, the RewP and FN have strong psychometric properties in a healthy adult sample. Future research is needed to assess the psychometric properties of these ERPs in different age cohorts and in clinical populations.

Advances in cognitive and affective neuroscience come largely from within-subjects comparisons, in which the functional significance of neural activity is determined by contrasting two or more experimental conditions. Clinical and social neuroscience studies have attempted to leverage between-subject variability in such condition differences to better understand psychopathology and other individual differences. Shifting from within-to between-subjects comparisons requires that measures have adequate internal consistency to function as individual difference variables. This is particularly relevant for difference scores-which have lower reliability. The field has assumed reasonable internal consistency of neural measures based on consistent findings across studies (i.e., if a within-subject difference in neural activity is robust, then it must be reliable). Using one of the most common fMRI paradigms in the clinical neuroscience literature (i.e., a face- and shape-matching task), in a large sample of adolescents (N = 139) we replicate a robust finding: amygdala activation is greater for faces than shapes. Moreover, we demonstrate that the internal consistency of the amygdala in face and shape blocks was excellent (Spearman-Brown corrected reliability [SB] > .94). However, the internal consistency of the activation difference between faces and shapes was nearly zero (SB = -.06). This reflected the fact that the amygdala response to faces and shapes was highly correlated (r = .97) across individuals. Increased neural activation to faces versus shapes could not possibly function as an individual difference measure in these data-illustrating how neural activation can be robust within subjects, but unreliable as an individual difference measure. Strong and reproducible condition differences in neural activity are not necessarily well-suited for individual differences research-and neuroimaging studies should always report the internal consistency of, and correlations between, activations used in individual differences research.

Emotion-cognition and motivation-cognition relationships and related brain mechanisms are receiving increasing attention in the clinical research literature as a means of understanding diverse types of psychopathology and improving biological and psychological treatments. This paper reviews and integrates some of the growing evidence for cognitive biases and deficits in depression and anxiety, how these disruptions interact with emotional and motivational processes, and what brain mechanisms appear to be involved. This integration sets the stage for understanding the role of neuroplasticity in implementing change in cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes in psychopathology as a function of intervention.

The appeal of simple, sweeping portraits of large-scale brain mechanisms relevant to psychological phenomena competes with a rich, complex research base. As a prominent example, two views of frontal brain organization have emphasized dichotomous lateralization as a function of either emotional valence (positive/negative) or approach/avoidance motivation. Compelling findings support each. The literature has struggled to choose between them for three decades, without success. Both views are proving untenable as comprehensive models. Evidence of other frontal lateralizations, involving distinctions among dimensions of depression and anxiety, make a dichotomous view even more problematic. Recent evidence indicates that positive valence and approach motivation are associated with different areas in the left-hemisphere. Findings that appear contradictory at the level of frontal lobes as the units of analysis can be accommodated because hemodynamic and electromagnetic neuroimaging studies suggest considerable functional differentiation, in specialization and activation, of subregions of frontal cortex, including their connectivity to each other and to other regions. Such findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of functional localization that accommodates aspects of multiple theoretical perspectives.

Background Abnormal neural response to reward is increasingly thought to function as a biological correlate of emerging psychopathology during adolescence. However, this view assumes such responses have good psychometric properties—especially internal consistency—an assumption that is rarely tested. Methods Internal consistency (i.e., spilt-half reliability) was calculated for event-related potentials (ERPs) and Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) responses to monetary gain and loss feedback from the same sample of 8–14 year-old females (n=177). Internal consistency for ERPs (i.e. feedback negativity) and BOLD responses within the ventral striatum and medial/lateral prefrontal cortex to gain, loss, difference scores (gain-loss), and residual scores (gain controlling for loss) were compared. Moderation analyses were conducted to investigate whether internal consistency differed by age. Results ERP and BOLD responses to gain and loss feedback showed high internal consistency in all regions (Spearman Brown Coefficients (SB) ≥ 0.70). When considering difference and residual scores, however, responses showed lower internal consistency (SBs ≤ 0.50), with particularly low internal consistency for subtraction-based scores (SB ≤ 0.36). Age was not a significant moderator of split-half relationships, indicating similar internal consistency across late childhood to early adolescence. Conclusions Within the same subjects, high internal consistency was observed for both ERP and fMRI measures of response to gains and losses, which did not vary as a function of age. Moreover, excellent psychometric properties were evident even within the first half of the experiment. Difference scores were characterized by lower internal consistency, although regression-based approaches outperformed subtraction-based difference scores.