Citation

Burkhouse KL, Gorka SM, Afshar K, Phan KL. J. Affect. Disord. 2017; 217: 73-79.

Affiliation

University of Illinois-Chicago, Department of Psychiatry, 1747 West Roosevelt Road, Chicago, IL 60608, USA; University of Illinois-Chicago, Departments of Psychology and Anatomy and Cell Biology, and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, 808 S. Wood Street, Chicago, IL 60612, USA; Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, Mental Health Service Line, 820 S. Damen Avenue, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jad.2017.03.061

PMID

28391111

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Reduced reward responsiveness, measured via the event-related potential (ERP) component the reward positivity (RewP), has been linked to several internalizing psychopathologies (IPs). Specifically, prior studies suggest that a reduced RewP is robustly related to depression and to a lesser extent anxiety. No studies to date, however, have examined the relation between the RewP and IP symptom dimensions in a heterogeneous, clinically representative patient population that includes both depressed and/or anxious subjects. The primary aim of the current study was to examine the relation between the RewP and specific internalizing symptom dimensions among patients with a variety of IP diagnoses and symptoms.

METHODS: A total of 80 treatment seeking adults from the community completed a battery of questionnaires assessing a range of IP symptoms and a well-validated reward processing task known to robustly elicit the RewP.

RESULTS: A principal components analysis (PCA) on clinical assessments revealed two distinct factors that characterized the patient sample: affective distress/misery and fear-based anxiety.

RESULTS showed that within this sample, an attenuated RewP was associated with greater affective distress/misery based symptoms; however, the RewP was unrelated to fear-based anxiety symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS: The current findings suggest that patients with higher distress/misery symptoms are characterized by decreased responsivity to rewards at the physiological level, and that this response tendency distinguishes distress/misery symptoms from fear-based symptoms. The RewP may be one promising transdiagnostic biological target for intervention efforts for individuals with distress-based symptoms of psychopathology.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Distress; Event-related potentials; Fear; Internalizing symptoms; Reward positivity