Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
Department of Psychology, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
J Affect Disord. 2020 Nov 1;276:112-118. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.06.071. Epub 2020 Jul 14.
Blunted reward processing has emerged as an endophenotype of major depressive disorder (MDD), but mechanistic understanding for this deficit remains elusive. The current event-related potential study examined whether this aberration is driven by the blunted effect of perceived control on reward processing.
We adapted a well-validated gambling task in which perceived control was exercised by choice in 29 individuals with current MDD and 31 healthy controls. We examined the reward positivity in response to personally chosen versus passively received rewards.
We found that MDD patients relative to healthy controls exhibited a blunted reward positivity when rewards were delivered following voluntary choices but not when they were delivered following passive choices. This pattern was not observed during the relatively late stage, as indexed by the P300, of feedback processing.
The current findings may be confounded with medication and anxiety.
These findings suggest that deficient reward processing in MDD is attributable to the deficiency in boosting reward responsivity by perceived control exercised by choice.
奖赏加工迟钝已成为重度抑郁症（MDD）的一种内表型，但对于这种缺陷的机制理解仍难以捉摸。本事件相关电位研究考察了这种异常是否是由感知控制对奖赏加工的迟钝效应驱动的。
我们改编了一项经过充分验证的赌博任务，在该任务中，通过选择来行使感知控制，共有 29 名当前患有 MDD 的患者和 31 名健康对照者参与。我们观察了个人选择的奖励和被动接受的奖励所引起的奖赏正波。
我们发现，与健康对照组相比，MDD 患者在自愿选择后获得奖励时表现出奖赏正波的迟钝，但在被动选择后获得奖励时则没有。这种模式在反馈处理的相对后期阶段，即 P300 阶段，并没有观察到。
目前的研究结果可能与药物和焦虑有关。
这些发现表明，MDD 中的奖赏加工迟钝是由于感知控制通过选择行使而增强奖赏反应性的缺陷所致。
