Depression is associated with blunted affective responses to naturalistic reward prediction errors

Depression is characterized by abnormalities in emotional processing, but the specific drivers of such emotional abnormalities are unknown. Computational work indicates that both surprising outcomes (prediction errors; PEs) and outcomes (values) themselves drive emotional responses, but neither has been consistently linked to affective disturbances in depression. As a result, the computational mechanisms driving emotional abnormalities in depression remain unknown.

Here, in 687 individuals, one-third of whom qualify as depressed via a standard self-report measure (the PHQ-9), we use high-stakes, naturalistic events - the reveal of midterm exam grades - to test whether individuals with heightened depression display a specific reduction in emotional response to positive PEs.

Using Bayesian mixed effects models, we find that individuals with heightened depression do not affectively benefit from surprising, good outcomes - that is, they display reduced affective responses to positive PEs. These results were highly specific: effects were not observed to negative PEs, value signals (grades), and were not related to generalized anxiety. This suggests that the computational drivers of abnormalities in emotion in depression may be specifically due to positive PE-based emotional responding.

Affective abnormalities are core depression symptoms, but the computational mechanisms underlying such differences are unknown. This work suggests that blunted affective reactions to positive PEs are likely mechanistic drivers of emotional dysregulation in depression.