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Yu, Yuexiaoxi

University of British Columbia

Anhedonia presents in various psychiatric disorders and is a core symptom of depression. It involves disruptions in temporally and anatomically distinct subcomponents of reward processing, including reward anticipation and consumption. Studies using electroencephalography (EEG) to examine both anticipatory and consummatory reward processing components are limited, and study paradigms that incorporate psychological constructs like decision-making and reinforcement learning often overlap and confound the electrophysiological markers that are unique to anticipatory and consummatory reward processing. This study aims to validate an EEG-based Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) paradigm in a college population to examine relevant anticipatory and consummatory reward-related event-related potentials (ERPs), P3 and stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN), during different stages of reward processing. We found that the paradigm successfully elicited reward-related ERPs. Cue-P3 amplitudes and latency were modulated by reward magnitudes, however, no significant effect of reward magnitudes and valence was found on SPN and Feedback-P3, respectively. The paradigm was adjusted following the initial study to eliminate potential interfering visual effects from the cue and feedback stimuli. Additional data were collected in a new group of participants, and we found similar results, but without the confounding potentials. The paradigm also incorporated behavioural measurements of reward anticipation and consumption, and higher anticipatory and consummatory ratings and shortened response time towards the target stimuli were elicited as reward magnitudes increased. We concluded that the validated MID paradigm allows for a precise examination of reward-related ERPs, especially at early anticipation stage, and offers a valuable tool for investigating reward processing and related symptoms in clinical populations. Future studies should consider recruiting larger and more diverse samples besides college populations to investigate symptoms of anhedonia and reward processing in clinical populations.

Text

2023-09-26

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86024

Neuroscience

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/