Associations between different facets of anhedonia and neural response to monetary, social, and food reward in emerging adults

Anhedonia is present in diverse psychiatric disorders and has been linked to reduced neural responses to reward. However, most studies of anhedonia have used monetary reward, making it unclear whether previously-observed deficits represent broad domain-general impairments, or whether associations with anhedonia might vary across incentive types. The present study (N = 120) investigated associations between multiple measures of selfreported anhedonia and reward responsiveness and the reward positivity (RewP), a neural index of reward processing, following monetary, social, and food reward. Greater social anhedonia was associated with a smaller RewP following positive social feedback, whereas reduced consummatory pleasure was associated with a smaller RewP following food reward. Associations among both self-report and neural measures of reward sensitivity were generally modest. Our findings suggest that neither anhedonia nor neural reward sensitivity are unidimensional constructs, and that category-specific reward deficits might better capture specific problems in hedonic functioning.

Automated summary

This study investigated the associations between self-reported anhedonia and reward sensitivity, as well as the reward positivity (RewP) following monetary, social, and food rewards. The findings suggest that social anhedonia is associated with a smaller RewP following positive social feedback, while reduced consummatory pleasure is associated with a smaller RewP following food reward.