Major depression symptom severity associations with willingness to exert effort and patch foraging strategy

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with impaired motivation and cognitive function, affecting goal-directed behaviors.
• Individuals typically maximize expected value by balancing potential rewards against costs, including effort and opportunity costs.
• Altered cost-benefit analysis in MDD may explain variations in cognitive symptoms and heterogeneity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify cognitive and physical effort costs and patch leaving thresholds in individuals with MDD.
• To investigate the relationship between these decision-making measures and clinical features of MDD.
• To explore potential mechanisms underlying MDD heterogeneity through effort-based decision-making.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Effort Foraging Task to assess effort costs and decision-making.
• Included participants with MDD (N=52) and comparison groups (N=27).
• Examined relationships between decision-making measures and clinical symptom severity, controlling for ability.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in decision-making measures were found between MDD and control groups.
• Effort-based decision-making measures correlated with symptom severity, independent of cognitive ability.
• Anxiety symptoms linked to lower cognitive effort cost; anhedonia and apathy linked to higher physical effort costs; depression severity linked to decreased patch leaving thresholds.

Conclusions:

• Effort-based decision-making markers may help understand MDD heterogeneity.
• Increased cognitive effort willingness may relate to anxiety; reduced vigor in MDD may relate to leaving thresholds.
• Future research should explore depression subtypes, particularly those with and without anxiety, in relation to cognitive effort.