The dynamical signature of anhedonia in Major Depressive Disorder: Positive emotion dynamics, reactivity, and recovery

Abstract

Background: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of disability worldwide. The cardinal features of MDD are depressed mood and anhedonia. Anhedonia is defined as a “markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities of the day”, yet has never been investigated in the daily life of patients diagnosed with MDD. We address this gap in knowledge by means of Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA). Methods: We sampled Positive Affect (PA) and reward experiences on 10 semi-random time points a day, for seven days in the daily lives of 47 MDD patients with anhedonia, and 40 controls. Results: Multilevel models showed that anhedonia was associated to low PA, but not to differences in PA dynamics, nor reward frequency in daily life. In reaction to rewards, MDD patients with anhedonia showed no difference in their increase in PA (i.e., PA reactivity), and showed no signs of a faster return to baseline thereafter (i.e., PA recovery). Conclusion: Our results suggest that the dynamical signature of anhedonia in MDD can be described best as a lower average level of PA, and “normal” in terms of PA dynamics, daily reward reactivity and reward recovery. Preregistration doi: 10.17605/osf.io/gjaze; Data and Materials: osf.io/8gxrw.

Daily Affective Dynamics Predict Depression Symptom Trajectories Among Adults with Major and Minor Depression

“…For example, in their meta-analytic review, Houben et al (2015) observed that alterations in PA dynamics vary between symptomatic and diagnosed samples, such that while those with subclinical depression (i.e., minor depression and non-clinical symptomatic individuals) primarily exhibited high PA variability, instability, and inertia, a diagnosis of MDD was associated with only low PA variability. Along these lines, Heininga et al (2019) did not find any differences between clinically depressed and nondepressed on PA dynamics (i.e., PA variability, instability, and inertia). Similar to findings with subclinical adults, depression symptoms in adolescence also have been associated with greater PA variability (van Roekel et al, 2016).…”

Negative mood affects the expression of negative but not positive emotions in mice

“…This is an intriguing and unexpected result, since the tail-handled mice showed blunted responses towards the sucrose solution and were more anhedonic overall, which is a core symptom of clinical depression. Although this may seem counterintuitive, patients in some studies of MDD show similar increases in positive affect towards positive events when compared with less depressed individuals [ 49 , 50 ]. In addition, like our mice, these patients also show sustained disappointment towards negative events [ 50 ].…”

Selection of the Number of Participants in Intensive Longitudinal Studies: A User-friendly Shiny App and Tutorial to Perform Power Analysis in Multilevel Regression Models that Account for Temporal Dependencies

“…Model 1 in Figure 1 estimates differences in the mean of the outcome variable, Affect, between the two groups of individuals (e.g., Heininga et al 2019, Myin-Germeys et al 2001. This model includes the Affect it value as the outcome variable for the ith individual at the tth observation and a level-2 dummy variable that indicates the diagnosis group (i.e., Diagnosis i ).…”

“…For all models, the value of a large number of model parameters has to be specified. We recommend to choose these values based on data from a pilot study, or based on existing IL studies with similar measures and designs (see, e.g., Lane & Hennes 2018) To this end, we will use information from a clinical dataset reported on by Heininga et al (2019).…”