Objective and specific tracking of anhedonia via event-related potentials in individuals with cocaine use disorders

Abstract

Background Hyposensitivity to non-drug reward, behaviorally manifested as anhedonia, is a hallmark of chronic substance use. Anhedonia is a transdiagnostic symptom underpinned by neurobiochemical disturbances in the reward circuit, yet an objective measure to assess anhedonia severity still eludes the field. We hypothesized that the Reward Positivity (RewP) component of the event-related potentials (ERPs) will specifically track anhedonia as the RewP is attributed to the same brain regions that are also implicated in anhedonia. Methods Forty-six individuals with cocaine use disorders (iCUD) performed a gambling task predicting whether they would win or lose money on each trial, while ERP data was acquired. RewP in response to predicted win trials was extracted from the ERPs using the principal component analysis. State anhedonia and depression severity were assessed using the Cocaine Selective Severity Assessment (CSSA). Results Although RewP amplitude correlated with both anhedonia and depression, only the RewP-anhedonia correlation survived a correction for depression severity. Further, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that anhedonia explained a significant amount of variance in the RewP amplitude, and this variance was significantly greater than that explained by demographics, severity and recency of drug use and even depression. Conclusions These results show that RewP amplitude in response to rewarded trials tracks state anhedonia severity in iCUD. We argue that this association is perhaps driven by the activity in the dopaminergic mesocorticolimbic reward pathway that may underlie anhedonia symptomology as well as modulate RewP amplitude.

Electrophysiological indices of anterior cingulate cortex function reveal changing levels of cognitive effort and reward valuation that sustain task performance

“…An exploration of whether persistence and reward sensitivity were associated with task performance, RewP amplitude, and FMT power failed to reveal any significant relations among them (see Supplementary Table 1). Although a number of studies have reported individual differences in personality associated with RewP amplitude (e.g., Bress andHajcak, 2013, Cooper et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2014;Parvaz et al, 2016;Umemoto and Holroyd, 2017) and phasic FMT power (e.g., Cavanagh and Shackman, 2014), we did not replicate any of these findings. Nevertheless, such effects may have been obscured by the low statistical power in the present study for conducting analyses related to individual differences.…”

“…Given the inverse problem, the neural source of the RewP is less clear, but the balance of evidence suggests that it is produced in anterior midcingulate cortex (e.g., Miltner et al, 1997;Becker et al, 2014; but see Proudfit, 2015). Of particular relevance to this study, RewP amplitude correlates positively with individual differences in reward sensitivity (Bress andHajcak, 2013, Umemoto and; see also Cooper et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2014;Parvaz et al, 2016), and negatively with individual differences in depression levels (e.g., Umemoto and Holroyd, 2017;Proudfit, 2015), which suggests that the RewP may index subjective levels of reward valuation (see Holroyd and Umemoto, 2016 for review).…”

Addiction, Anhedonia, and Comorbid Mood Disorder. A Narrative Review

“…Parvaz et al used a gambling task predicting whether they would win or lose money on each trial, while ERP data were required (40). Reward Positivity component (RewP) in response to predicted win trials was extracted from the ERPs.…”

A registered report of error-related negativity and reward positivity as biomarkers of depression: P-Curving the evidence

“…We predicted that participants who self-report high reward sensitivity would exhibit a relatively large feedback related RewP (Bress and Hajcak, 2013;Cooper et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2014;Parvaz et al, 2016), whereas those high in depression-related personality traits would exhibit a small feedbackrelated RewP (Proudfit, 2015).…”