Purdue University, Department of Psychological Sciences, 703 Third Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Stony Brook University, Department of Psychology, Psychology B Building, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
Biol Psychol. 2023 Sep;182:108623. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108623. Epub 2023 Jun 29.
A candidate pathophysiological process in major depressive disorder is diminished neural reactivity to reward delivery, which is theorized to give rise to anhedonia. Reduced amplitude in the reward positivity (RewP), which captures initial reward evaluation, has been linked to current symptoms of depression among child, adolescent, and young adult samples. However, the developmental trajectory of this association is incomplete, with relatively few studies in middle and older adulthood. Further, emerging evidence in the literature also suggests that this association may be linked to female sex-specific processes, but no studies to date have directly contrasted the effect of sex on the depression-RewP association. The current study sought to address these gaps by testing how sex and age may moderate the depression-RewP association within a mature adult community sample. Symptoms of depression were evaluated using a survey and a clinical interview, and the RewP was elicited using a simple guessing task. There was a three-way interaction between depression symptom severity, age, and sex in predicting RewP amplitude. This was driven by younger (late 30's to early 40's) female-sexed people such that for this group, elevated symptoms of depression were associated with blunting of the RewP. This association tapered around age 50. This effect was specific to clinician-rated rather than self-reported depressive symptom severity. This pattern of effects suggests that among female-sexed people, developmental processes continue to shape the association between reward responsiveness and depression throughout middle adulthood.
在重度抑郁症中，一个候选的病理生理过程是对奖励传递的神经反应减弱，这被认为导致了快感缺失。奖励正波（RewP）幅度的降低，该波捕捉到初始的奖励评估，与儿童、青少年和年轻成人样本中当前的抑郁症状有关。然而，这种关联的发展轨迹并不完整，中年和老年成年人的研究相对较少。此外，文献中的新证据还表明，这种关联可能与女性特有的性别过程有关，但迄今为止，没有研究直接对比性别对抑郁-RewP 关联的影响。本研究试图通过测试性别和年龄如何在成熟的成年社区样本中调节抑郁-RewP 关联来解决这些差距。使用问卷调查和临床访谈评估抑郁症状，使用简单的猜测任务诱发 RewP。在预测 RewP 幅度方面，抑郁症状严重程度、年龄和性别之间存在三向交互作用。这是由年轻（30 多岁到 40 多岁）的女性驱动的，对于这一群体，抑郁症状的升高与 RewP 的减弱有关。这种关联在 50 岁左右逐渐减少。这种效应是特定于临床医生评定的而非自我报告的抑郁症状严重程度。这种效应模式表明，在女性中，奖励反应性与抑郁之间的关联在整个中年期间继续受到发育过程的影响。
