Dataset Information

Dampening Positive Affect and Neural Reward Responding in Healthy Children: Implications for Affective Inflexibility.

ABSTRACT: Blunted reward processing is evident in and may contribute to the onset of major depressive disorder. However, it is unclear what mechanisms contribute to the development of blunted reward-response prior to depression onset. The current study examined how individual differences in the tendency to dampen positive affect, an affect regulation strategy that decreases positive affect, are associated with reward responding and related brain activation in 39 healthy children (ages 7-10; 51% female; 79% White). To do this, we examined neural responses to winning a reward (candy) within the context of a previous loss, win, or neutral outcome. Whole-brain regression analyses revealed that self-reported tendencies to engage in dampening were associated with blunted striatum and thalamic activation during a winning outcome when following a previous loss outcome, as compared to when following a neutral outcome. This finding was above and beyond the influence of current depressive symptoms. However, tendencies to dampen positive affect were not associated with neural activity during the second of 2 consecutive win outcomes, and thus did not support the notion that dampening is associated with an inability to maintain reward responding. In youth, tendencies to dampen positive affect may be associated with less ability to flexibly upregulate neural reward responding following a loss, possibly leading to the development of affective inflexibility and increased vulnerability to depression. Dampening positive affect may be one mechanism that contributes to aberrant neural reward responding via affective inflexibility and may be a target for prevention in youth.

SUBMITTER: Gilbert KE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5420488 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan-Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Dampening Positive Affect and Neural Reward Responding in Healthy Children: Implications for Affective Inflexibility.

Gilbert Kirsten Elizabeth KE Luking Katherine Rose KR Pagliaccio David D L Luby Joan J Barch Deanna M DM

Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology : the official journal for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53 20161107 1

Blunted reward processing is evident in and may contribute to the onset of major depressive disorder. However, it is unclear what mechanisms contribute to the development of blunted reward-response prior to depression onset. The current study examined how individual differences in the tendency to dampen positive affect, an affect regulation strategy that decreases positive affect, are associated with reward responding and related brain activation in 39 healthy children (ages 7-10; 51% female; 79 ...[more]

PMID: 27819484

Similar Datasets

Project description:Deficits in motivational behavior and psychotic symptoms often observed in schizophrenia (SZ) may be driven by dysfunctional reward processing (RP). RP can be divided in two different stages; reward anticipation and reward consumption. Aberrant processing during reward anticipation seems to be related to SZ. Studies in patients with SZ have found less activation in the ventral striatum (VS) during anticipation of reward, but these findings do not provide information on effect of the genetic load on reward processing. Therefore, this study investigated RP in healthy first-degree relatives of SZ patients. The sample consisted of 94 healthy siblings of SZ patients and 57 healthy controls. Participants completed a classic RP task, the Monetary Incentive Delay task, during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). As expected, there were no behavioral differences between groups. In contrast to our expectations, we found no differences in any of the anticipatory reward related brain areas (region of interest analyses). Whole-brain analyses did reveal group differences during both reward anticipation and reward consumption; during reward anticipation siblings showed less deactivation in the insula, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and medial frontal gyrus (MFG) than controls. During reward consumption siblings showed less deactivation in the PCC and the right MFG compared to controls and activation in contrast to deactivation in controls in the precuneus and the left MFG. Exclusively in siblings, MFG activity correlated positively with subclinical negative symptoms. These regions are typically associated with the default mode network (DMN), which normally shows decreases in activation during task-related cognitive processes. Thus, in contrast to prior literature in patients with SZ, the results do not point to altered brain activity in classical RP brain areas, such as the VS. However, the weaker deactivation found outside the reward-related network in siblings could indicate reduced task-related suppression (i.e., hyperactivation) of the DMN. The presence of DMN hyperactivation during reward anticipation and reward consumption might indicate that siblings of patients with SZ have a higher baseline level of DMN activation and possible abnormal network functioning.

Dataset Information

Dampening Positive Affect and Neural Reward Responding in Healthy Children: Implications for Affective Inflexibility.

Publications

Dampening Positive Affect and Neural Reward Responding in Healthy Children: Implications for Affective Inflexibility.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets