Department of Psychology, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA.
Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology, Norfolk, Virginia, USA.
Psychophysiology. 2022 Jan;59(1):e13953. doi: 10.1111/psyp.13953. Epub 2021 Oct 12.
The reward positivity (RewP) is a putative biomarker of depression. Careful control of stimulus properties and manipulation of both stimulus valence and salience could facilitate interpretation of the RewP. RewP interpretation could further be improved by investigating functional outcomes of a blunted RewP in depression, such as reduced memory for rewarding outcomes. This study sought to advance RewP interpretation first by advancing task design through use of neutral (i.e., draw) control trials and counterbalanced feedback stimuli. Second, we examined the RewP's association with memory and the impact of depression. Undergraduates completed self-report measures of depression and anhedonia prior to a modified doors task in which words were displayed in colored fonts that indicated win, loss, or draw feedback. Memory of the feedback associated with each word (i.e., source memory) was tested. Results showed that RewP response to wins was more positive than to losses, which was more positive than to draws. The RewP was not associated with depression or anhedonia. The low depression group showed a source memory advantage for win words, but the high depression group did not. Source memory showed small relations to the RewP, but these did not survive Bonferroni correction. Results suggest the RewP is sensitive to salience and highlight challenges in detecting an association between the RewP and depression in modified doors tasks. Findings indicate that depression is related to dysfunctional source memory for reward but not loss and that future research should probe the possible associations between the RewP and memory in depression.
奖励正波（RewP）被认为是抑郁症的生物标志物。仔细控制刺激特性，以及刺激效价和显著性的操纵，可以促进对 RewP 的解释。通过研究抑郁症中 RewP 迟钝的功能结果，例如对奖励结果的记忆减少，可以进一步改善 RewP 的解释。本研究首先通过使用中性（即绘图）对照试验和平衡反馈刺激来推进任务设计，从而推进 RewP 的解释。其次，我们检查了 RewP 与记忆的关联以及抑郁症的影响。大学生在进行改良门任务之前完成了抑郁和快感缺失的自我报告测量，在该任务中，单词以彩色字体显示，指示赢、输或平局反馈。测试了与每个单词相关的反馈（即来源记忆）的记忆。结果表明，与损失相比，赢的反馈引起的 RewP 反应更为积极，而平局的反馈更为积极。RewP 与抑郁或快感缺失无关。低抑郁组对赢的单词有来源记忆优势，但高抑郁组没有。来源记忆与 RewP 有很小的关系，但在 Bonferroni 校正后没有幸存下来。结果表明，RewP 对显著性敏感，并强调在改良门任务中检测 RewP 与抑郁之间关联的挑战。研究结果表明，抑郁与奖励的来源记忆功能障碍有关，但与损失无关，未来的研究应该探究 RewP 与抑郁记忆之间的可能关联。
