Anhedonic symptoms of depression are linked to reduced motivation to obtain a reward

Abstract

People with depression report reduced motivation to obtain a reward and reduced affective responses to reward. However, studies focusing on the relation between anhedonia and deficits in reward processing are scarce. Furthermore, studies investigating wanting through cardiovascular reactivity and liking through facial electromyography in human beings are also scarce. In this study, we used the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) score as a continuous predictor variable of anhedonia and we manipulated two within-person conditions (wanting vs. liking). Participants earned money if their performance on a memory task exceeded a particular standard. As expected, effort-related cardiovascular reactivity and self-reports during the anticipatory phase were lower for participants scoring high on anhedonia. Moreover, task performance outcomes were worse for highly anhedonic participants. However, the zygomaticus major muscle's activity during the consummatory phase was unrelated to the anhedonia score. The present study underlines the importance of anhedonic symptoms particularly in reduced anticipatory motivation to obtain a reward.

Threat-related motivational disengagement: Integrating blunted cardiovascular reactivity to stress into the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat

“…Hence, a reduction or absence of heart rate and ventricular contractility increases might indicate a subconscious reduction or absence of psychological task engagement or motivation to engage in the motivated performance situation, despite unchanged conscious self-reports of motivation. This explanation is also consistent with the association between blunted CVR and depression, as depression features anhedonia, a core symptom characterized by reduced sensitivity to and reduced anticipatory motivation to pursue rewards (Ahles et al, 2017;Franzen & Brinkmann, 2016;Treadway & Zald, 2013).…”

Appetitive motivation in depressive anhedonia: Effects of piece-rate cash rewards on cardiac and behavioral outcomes.

“…your-best instructions; Brinkmann & Gendolla, 2007;Silvia et al, 2014) or with uncertain difficulty levels (e.g., Franzen & Brinkmann, 2016a, 2016b. These studies suggest that anhedonia reduces the perceived value of incentives, but it is difficult to disentangle incentive value from other depressive effects when no rewards are at stake or when people do not know what the task will be like.…”

Longitudinal evaluation of anhedonia as a mediator of fear of positive evaluation and other depressive symptoms

“…Anticipatory anhedonia (i.e., a tendency not to look forward to prospectively pleasurable events) is linked to a lack of reward motivation in depressed (Liu et al, 2011; Sherdell et al, 2012; Treadway, Buckholtz, Schwartzman, Lambert, & Zald, 2009), dysphoric (Brinkmann, Franzen, Rossier, & Gendolla, 2014; Franzen & Brinkmann, 2015), and non-depressed (Geaney, Treadway, & Smillie, 2015) individuals. Consummatory anhedonia (i.e., a tendency not to derive pleasure from in-the-moment experiences), on the other hand, is not related to this lack of reward motivation, and anticipatory and consummatory anhedonia may even have different underlying biological mechanisms (Gard et al, 2006; Treadway & Zald, 2011).…”