From Reward to <em>Anhedonia : </em>Dopamine Function in The Global Mental Health Context

Abstract

When &amp;ldquo;hijacked&amp;rdquo; by compulsive behaviors that affect the reward and stress centers of the brain, functional changes in dopamine circuitry occur as the consequence of pathological brain adaptation. As a brain explanans for mental health, with a central functional role in behavioral regulation from healthy reward seeking to pathological adaptation to stress in response to adversity, we may use dopamine regulation in interaction with other brain mechanisms, as discussed herein, to gather a deeper insight into environmentally triggered mental health changes to understand, for example, specific behavioral changes observed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemic-related adversities, the stresses they engendered, and the long lockdown periods where people had to rely on digital tools to get feed-back rewards via the internet can be seen as the major triggers of changes in motivation and reward seeking behavior worldwide. The pathological adaptation of dopamine-mediated reward circuitry in the brain offers a highly plausible explanation why, when pushed by fate and circumstance into a physiological brain state of anti-reward, human behavior and mental health changes almost inevitably depending on individual vulnerability to stress. A unified conceptual account that places dopamine function at the centre of the current global mental health context is proposed.

The effect of vortioxetine on anhedonia in patients with schizophrenia

“…16 It is associated with neurotransmission dysfunction in the mesolimbic dopamine reward system. 17 There are two types of anhedonia: physical and social anhedonia. 4 Patients with schizophrenia have greater physical and social anhedonia than the healthy population.…”