Evaluating the neural substrates of effort-expenditure for reward in adults with major depressive disorder and obesity

• Published in: Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging Vol. 329; p. 111592
• Main Authors: Gill, Hartej, McIntyre, Roger S., Hawco, Colin, Rodrigues, Nelson B., Gill, Barjot, DiVincenzo, Joshua D., Lieberman, Jonathan M., Marks, CéAnn A., Cha, Danielle S., Lipsitz, Orly, Nazal, Hana, Jasrai, Ashitija, Rosenblat, Joshua D., Mansur, Rodrigo B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01-03-2023
• Subjects: Adult; Anhedonia; Decision Making - physiology; Depressive Disorder, Major; Effort-expenditure; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Health Expenditures; Humans; Major depressive disorder; Motivation; Neuroimaging; Obesity; Obesity - diagnostic imaging; Reward; Reward anticipation; Reward motivation; Neuroimaging; Obesity; Effort-expenditure; Reward motivation; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Anhedonia; Major depressive disorder; Reward anticipation
• ISSN: 0925-4927; 1872-7506
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2023.111592

•MDD and obesity are comorbid conditions that are subserved by deficits in reward functioning.•Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed in regions associated with reward behaviour.•We observed decreased activation in the left caudate in patients with increased BMI.•MDD and obesity comorbidity may exhibit deficits in cost-benefit decision making.
Converging evidence has suggested that disturbances in monetary reward processing may subserve the shared biosignature between major depressive disorder (MDD) and obesity. However, there remains a paucity of studies that have evaluated the deficits in specific subcomponents of reward functioning in populations with MDD and obesity comorbidity. We evaluated the association between effort-expenditure for monetary reward and neural activation in regions associated with reward-based decision making (i.e., the caudate nucleus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and hippocampus) in people with MDD and obesity comorbidity. We acquired structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 12 participants and performed a spherical region-of-interest analysis (ROI) using previously defined peak MNI coordinates. A one-sample t-test was employed to compare ROI-specific blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal change during the task choice selection window (i.e., high-effort vs. low-effort task) of the effort-expenditure for reward task (EEfRT). We observed no change in activation of the caudate nucleus, ACC or hippocampus in participants with increased BMI when contrasting the high effort > low effort reward magnitude condition for the EEfRT. The findings from our exploratory study evaluated the disturbances in fundamental reward processes, including cost-benefit decision making, in people MDD and obesity. Future studies should further investigate this relationship with a larger sample size.