Article

A longitudinal examination of event-related potentials sensitive to monetary reward and loss feedback from late childhood to middle adolescence

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract

Brain regions involved in reward processing undergo developmental changes from childhood to adolescence, and alterations in reward-related brain function are thought to contribute to the development of psychopathology. Event-related potentials (ERPs), such as the reward positivity (RewP) component, are valid measures of reward responsiveness that are easily assessed across development and provide insight into temporal dynamics of reward processing. Little work has systematically examined developmental changes in ERPs sensitive to reward. In this longitudinal study of 75 youth assessed 3 times across 6years, we used principal components analyses (PCA) to differentiate ERPs sensitive to monetary reward and loss feedback in late childhood, early adolescence, and middle adolescence. We then tested reliability of, and developmental changes in, ERPs. A greater number of ERP components differentiated reward and loss feedback in late childhood compared to adolescence, but components in childhood accounted for only a small proportion of variance. A component consistent with RewP was the only one to consistently emerge at each of the 3 assessments. RewP demonstrated acceptable reliability, particularly from early to middle adolescence, though reliability estimates varied depending on scoring approaches and developmental periods. The magnitude of the RewP component did not significantly change across time. Results provide insight into developmental changes in the structure of ERPs sensitive to reward, and support RewP as a consistently observed and relatively stable measure of reward responsiveness, particularly across adolescence.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.

... For instance, some studies have found that older children have a larger RewP compared to younger children (Gibb et al., 2022;Hennefield et al., 2022) and older adolescents have a larger RewP compared to younger adolescents (Burani, Mulligan, et al., 2019;Moser et al., 2018). In contrast, other studies using adolescent samples have found no differences in ERP reward-related brain activity as a function of age (Bress et al., 2012(Bress et al., , 2015Ethridge & Weinberg, 2018;Kujawa et al., 2018;Lukie et al., 2014). However, research examining changes in the RewP across adolescence have primarily relied upon cross-sectional, between-person analyses to examine developmental changes, and few studies have examined within-person changes in the RewP across adolescence. ...
... Of the few studies that have used longitudinal, within-person study designs to examine age-related changes in the RewP, only one study has examined changes in the RewP across three assessments. Kujawa and colleagues (Kujawa et al., 2018) examined developmental changes in the RewP in a sample of youth assessed across three assessments from late childhood to middle adolescence. Results indicated that the magnitude of the RewP did not significantly change from late childhood to late adolescence and remained stable across development, particularly during early to mid-adolescence. ...
... The present study adds novel evidence to a growing literature suggesting that adolescence is a critical period for the development of reward-related brain activity. Only two other studies have examined longitudinal, within-person changes in the ΔRewP across adolescence, which found no change in the ΔRewP (Kujawa et al., 2018) and increases in the RewP among younger participants across adolescence. The present study extends these findings and indicates that there are withinperson linear increases in the ΔRewP across adolescenceparticularly in those with low risk for depression. ...
Article
The reward positivity (RewP) is an event-related potential that indexes reinforcement learning and reward system activation. The RewP has been shown to increase across adolescence; however, most studies have examined the RewP across two assessments, and no studies have examined within-person changes across adolescence into young adulthood. Moreover, the RewP has been identified as a neurobiological risk factor for adolescent-onset depression, but it is unclear whether childhood psychosocial risk factors might predict RewP development across adolescence. In a sample of 317 8- to 14-year-old girls ( M age = 12.4, SD = 1.8), the present study examined self-report measures of depression symptoms and stressful life events at baseline and the ΔRewP during the doors guessing task across three timepoints. Growth modeling indicated that, across all participants, the ΔRewP did not demonstrate linear change across adolescence. However, baseline anhedonia symptoms predicted within-person changes in the ΔRewP, such that individuals with low anhedonia symptoms demonstrated a linear increase in the ΔRewP, but individuals with high anhedonia symptoms had no change in the ΔRewP across adolescence. Similar patterns were observed for stressful life events. The present study suggests that childhood risk factors impact the development of reward-related brain activity, which might subsequently increase risk for psychopathology.
... The existing ERP literature on reward processing has focused on the RewP, a positive deflection peaking around 250-350 ms in response to win versus loss feedback in a reward processing paradigm (Proudfit, 2015). The RewP is typically quantified as the difference wave between the win and loss conditions and is considered an index of individuals' sensitivity towards reward (versus loss) outcomes (Kujawa et al., 2018). A smaller RewP, indicating blunted reward sensitivity, was associated with concurrent and prospective depression or depression risks in children and adults (Belden et al., 2016;Bress et al., 2013Bress et al., , 2015Liu et al., 2014;Proudfit, 2015). ...
... We identified three factors that were temporally and spatially similar to the RewP, the anterior LPP, and the posterior LPP, respectively. As shown in the top panel of Fig. 2, the TF05SF1 factor (peaking channel FCz, peaking latency 228 ms) accounted for 2.8 % unique variance and was temporally and spatially analogous to the RewP reported in previous work (Burani et al., 2021;Kujawa et al., 2018;Proudfit, 2015). The TF02SF1 factor (peaking channel FCz, peaking latency 844 ms; Fig. 1 middle panel) with 7.4 % unique variance was characteristic of the anterior LPP previously observed in a reward paradigm (Pornpattananangkul and Nusslock, 2015;van Meel et al., 2005). ...
... In the ERP data, we identified a RewP component in the frontal region and a LPP in the anterior and posterior regions via a data-driven PCA approach. Consistent with previous findings, children showed a greater RewP towards the win relative to the loss condition (Kujawa et al., 2018;Proudfit et al., 2015). We also provided first evidence of a similar "negativity bias" of the feedbackelicited LPP in children as in adults (Glazer et al., 2018), such that a greater LPP was elicited towards the loss versus win condition. ...
Article
Internalizing problems increase substantially during late childhood and early adolescence, which are known to be associated with elevated perceived stress as children transition into adolescence. One risk factor that may moderate the stress-symptom association is reward processing. While neurophysiological research in this field has focused on the reward positivity component (RewP) elicited during reward processing, little work has examined the reward feedback-elicited late positive potential (LPP) and its association with internalizing psychopathology. The present study examined the moderating roles of the RewP and feedback-elicited LPP in the relationship between perceived stress and internalizing symptoms in late childhood. A community sample of 115 nine-to-12-year-old children (66 girls, Mean age = 11.00 years, SD = 1.16) completed an EEG version of the reward feedback paradigm, the Doors task, and completed questionnaires on perceived stress and internalizing symptoms. A principal component analysis revealed three temporo-spatial factors that were temporally and spatially analogous to the RewP, anterior LPP, and posterior LPP, respectively. As expected, an enlarged RewP was found towards the win condition compared to the loss condition. We also observed a potentiated LPP towards loss relative to win feedback, which may reflect the evaluation and reappraisal processes following unsuccessful performance (i.e., loss). We did not, however, find significant moderating effects of any ERP components on the stress-symptom association. Our study was first to isolate the feedback-elicited LPP in a reward processing paradigm in children and provide initial evidence on the modulation of the ERP component by task conditions. Future research is warranted to further explore the functional significance of the reward feedback-elicited LPP in association with perceived stress and internalizing psychopathology in youths.
... Moreover, the ΔRewP is related to risk for depression. For example, a blunted ΔRewP may be a risk factor for depression in never-depressed children and adolescents (Kujawa et al., 2018;Nelson and Jarcho, 2021) and interact with other prominent risk factors (e.g. maternal suicidality) to predict increases in depression in children . ...
... maternal suicidality) to predict increases in depression in children . Finally, ΔRewP can predict remission status and successful response to treatment in depressed adults (Klawohn et al., 2021) as well as change in depressive symptoms in anxious children and adolescents following treatment (Kujawa et al., 2018). Thus, these studies suggest that ΔRewP can predict the onset and course of depression at the individual level. ...
... Examining this question in late childhood and adolescence, Bress et al. (2015), Luking et al. (2017), and Kujawa et al. (2018) found that split-half estimates of internal consistency were high for RewP-gain and RewP-loss (r's > 0.79) but not ΔRewP (r's = 0.28-0.50). Similarly, RewP-gain and RewP-loss demonstrated acceptable test-retest reliability (r's = 0.52-0.67) ...
Article
Full-text available
Reward processing is implicated in the etiology of several psychological conditions including depressive disorders. In the current paper, we examined the psychometric properties of a neural measure of reward processing, the reward positivity (RewP), in 279 adult women at baseline and 187 women eight weeks later. The RewP demonstrated excellent internal consistency at both timepoints and good test-retest reliability using estimates from both classical test theory and generalizability theory. Additionally, the difference between RewP following reward and loss feedback was marginally associated with depressive symptoms in a subsample of participants. We also examined the relationship between subject-level dependability estimates and depression severity finding that depressive symptoms may contribute to lower dependability on reward trials. However, this finding did not survive correction for multiple comparisons and should be replicated in future studies. These findings support the RewP as a useful measure of individual differences of reward processing and point to the potential utility of this measure for various forms of psychopathology.
... ERPs are changes in the electroencephalogram (EEG) linked to specific events (e.g., presentation of a stimulus), reflecting synchronous activity of neuronal populations . Reward processing is of interest as differences in reward system regulation predicts development of externalizing and internalizing disorders Kujawa et al., 2018) as well as increases in depressive symptoms and substance abuse (Bress et al., 2013;Morgan et al., 2013;Stice et al., 2013). Middle-late adolescence is an especially relevant developmental phase from the perspective of reward processing as adolescent neuromaturation is such that there is a developmental discrepancy between brain regions implicated in the generation and the regulation of appetitive behavior (Ernst & Spear, 2009;Galván, 2013;Kringelbach, 2005;Spear, 2013Spear, , 2018, contributing to within-person peak in reward sensitivity during adolescence and a between-person increase in reward but decrease in punishment sensitivity (in adolescents relative to children and adults) (Cauffman et al., 2010;Ernst, 2014;Ernst & Spear, 2009;Shulman et al., 2016). ...
... adolescent, ERP preprocessing pipeline, event-related potential, psychometric property, reward sensitive window into the effects of atypical reward processing (Bress et al., 2013;Bunford et al., 2021;Kujawa et al., 2018;Morgan et al., 2013;Silverman et al., 2015;Stice et al., 2013). ...
... Next, we review the available literature assessing the psychometric properties of reward ERPs across age groups; instead of aiming for a comprehensive review our goal is to highlight areas where relevant data are available (with illustrative examples) and areas where a paucity of research is apparent. We focus on two aspects of reward processing, reward anticipation and initial response to reward attainment (hereafter: reward response) as probed by the monetary incentive delay (MID) (Knutson et al., 2003; and the Doors (Dunning & Hajcak, 2007;Kujawa et al., 2018;Kujawa, Proudfit, Hajcak, et al., 2015) tasks, respectively. Regarding MID ERPs, the Cue P3 measures attention allocation to cue, modulated by affective significance and the reward value of stimuli (Chronaki et al., 2017). ...
Article
Full-text available
Despite advantage of neuroimaging measures in translational research frameworks, less is known about the psychometric properties thereof, especially in middle-late adolescents. Earlier, we examined evidence of convergent and incremental validity of reward anticipation and response event-related potentials (ERPs) and here we examined, in the same sample of 43 adolescents (Mage = 15.67 years; SD = 1.01; range: 14-18; 32.6% boys), data quality (signal-to-noise ratio [SNR]), stability (mean amplitude across trials), and internal consistency (Cronbach's α and split-half reliability) of the same ERPs. Further, because observed time course and peak amplitude of ERP grand averages and thus findings on SNR, stability, and internal consistency may depend on preprocessing method, we employed a custom and a standardized preprocessing pipeline and compared findings across those. Using our custom pipeline, reward anticipation components were stable by the 40th trial, achieved acceptable internal consistency by the 19th, and all (but the stimulus-preceding negativity [SPN]) achieved acceptable SNR by the 41st trial. Initial response to reward components were stable by the 20th trial and achieved acceptable internal consistency by the 11th and acceptable SNR by the 45th trial. Difference scores had worse psychometric properties than parent measures. Time course and peak amplitudes of ERPs and thus results on SNR, stability, and internal consistency were comparable across preprocessing pipelines. In case of reward anticipation ERPs examined here, 41 trials (+4 artifacted and removed) and, in case of reward response ERPs, 45 trials (+5 artifacted) yielded stable and internally consistent estimates with acceptable SNR. Results are robust across preprocessing methods.
... With regard to age-related changes in the RewP, findings thus far have been mixed. Specifically, although a number of studies have suggested age-related differences in RewP/FN/FRN response to outcome feedback generally, regardless of valence (e.g., Burani et al., 2019;Crowley et al., 2013;Hämmerer et al., 2011;Kujawa et al., 2018; but see also Lukie et al., 2014), evidence regarding age-related differences in response to gain versus loss (or nonreward) has been less consistent. For example, whereas two studies found evidence of increased differentiation of neural responses to positive versus negative/ neutral outcome feedback in adolescents compared to children (Burani et al., 2019;Hämmerer et al., 2011), other studies have not (Crowley et al., 2013;Kujawa et al., 2018;Lukie et al., 2014). ...
... Specifically, although a number of studies have suggested age-related differences in RewP/FN/FRN response to outcome feedback generally, regardless of valence (e.g., Burani et al., 2019;Crowley et al., 2013;Hämmerer et al., 2011;Kujawa et al., 2018; but see also Lukie et al., 2014), evidence regarding age-related differences in response to gain versus loss (or nonreward) has been less consistent. For example, whereas two studies found evidence of increased differentiation of neural responses to positive versus negative/ neutral outcome feedback in adolescents compared to children (Burani et al., 2019;Hämmerer et al., 2011), other studies have not (Crowley et al., 2013;Kujawa et al., 2018;Lukie et al., 2014). Of these latter studies, two compared reward versus nonreward (Crowley et al., 2013;Lukie et al., 2014), whereas both the positive studies compared reward to loss, suggesting that age-related differences in neural reward processing may be stronger when comparing reward outcomes to loss rather than just the absence of reward. ...
... Burani have suggested that this type of approach is particularly important for examining substages of reward processing because they occur in rapid succession (within the first second after outcome feedback) and exhibit substantial spatial overlap (Glazer et al., 2018). Supporting this approach, it is increasingly used in ERP studies of reward processing (e.g., Ethridge et al., 2017;Kujawa et al., 2018;Tsypes et al., 2021;Weinberg et al., 2021). Given the evidence of stronger age-related differentiation of gain versus loss compared with reward versus nonreward feedback (Burani et al., 2019;Crowley et al., 2013;Hämmerer et al., 2011;Lukie et al., 2014), we compared neural reactivity to gain versus loss. ...
Article
The goal of this study was to examine age-related differences in children's reward processing. Focusing on reward outcome processing, we used event-related potentials to examine substages of neural response to gain versus loss feedback in a sample of 7-11-year-old children (M = 9.67, SD = 1.40) recruited from the community (N = 234; 47.6% girls, 66.2% non-Hispanic European American). Using principal components analysis (PCA), we focused on temporospatial combinations that closely resembled the RewP, fb-P3, and fb-LPP in temporal and spatial distributions. Two of these, the PCA factors reflecting the RewP and fb-LPP, demonstrated age-related differences in response to gains versus losses. Age-related changes in the RewP were specific to gain feedback, with RewP amplitudes to gain, but not loss, increasing from middle to late childhood. In contrast, age-related changes in fb-LPP were specific to loss feedback, with fb-LPP amplitudes to losses, but not gains, decreasing from middle to late childhood. Follow-up analyses revealed that children younger than age 8 exhibited larger fb-LPP responses to loss than gain, whereas children older than age 10 exhibited larger RewP responses to gain than loss. Similar results were obtained using mean amplitude-based ERP indices and the results do not appear to have been due to age-related differences in the latency or location of the ERPs themselves. These results highlight the importance of examining distinct substages of reward outcome processing and suggest that robust neural responses to loss feedback may emerge earlier in childhood than responses to gains.
... Particularly relevant ERP components for assessing PVS function include the J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f reward positivity (RewP) and late positive potential (LPP; see Figure 1). Longitudinal evidence indicates that both RewP and LPP are reliably elicited in response to reward feedback and pleasant stimuli, respectively (Kujawa et al., 2018;Pegg et al., 2019). RewP, which is thought to reflect reinforcement learning processes (Holroyd and Coles, 2002), appears as a relative positivity in the ERP wave approximately 300 ms after reward or positive feedback compared to loss or neutral feedback. ...
... RewP is also referred to as feedback negativity, which presents as a more negative deflection the ERP wave for loss feedback compared to win feedback. In monetary reward tasks, this component appears to be more accurately described as a positivity for wins and is consistently identified across development (Kujawa et al., 2018). Combined ERP-fMRI studies have linked RewP to activation in reward-related brain regions including VS, vmPFC, midcingulate and ACC (Becker et al., 2014;Carlson et al., 2011). ...
... There is more limited evidence for a comparable developmental trajectory of RewP and LPP. Several studies have failed to find significant developmental changes in RewP from childhood to adolescence or adolescence to adulthood (Kujawa et al., 2018;Lukie et al., 2014;Santesso et al., 2011), although others have found evidence of a relatively enhanced (Hämmerer et al., 2011) or reduced (Kujawa et al., 2019a;Zottoli and Grose-Fifer, 2012 (Kujawa et al., 2013;MacNamara et al., 2016). Developmental changes in LPP may be best characterized by shifts in the scalp topography of responses from more occipital distributions in childhood to centroparietal into adolescence and adulthood, rather than increasing or decreasing activation of PVS specifically (Pegg et al., 2019). ...
Article
Full-text available
Reduced activation of positive valence systems (PVS), including blunted neural and physiological responses to pleasant stimuli and rewards, has been shown to prospectively predict the development of psychopathology. Yet, little is known about how reduced PVS activation emerges across development or what implications it has for prevention. We review genetic, temperament, parenting, and naturalistic and laboratory stress research on neural measures of PVS and outline developmentally-informed models of trajectories of PVS activation. PVS function is partly heritable and appears to reflect individual differences in early-emerging temperament traits. Although lab-induced stressors blunt PVS activation, effects of parenting and naturalistic stress on PVS are mixed and depend on the type of stress, developmental timing, and interactions amongst risk factors. We propose that there may be multiple, dynamic developmental trajectories to reduced PVS activation in which combinations of genes, temperament, and exposure to severe, prolonged, or uncontrollable stress may exert direct and interactive effects on PVS function. Critically, these risk factors may alter PVS development trajectories and/or PVS sensitivity to proximal stressors. Distinct factors may converge such that PVS activation proceeds along a typical, accelerated, chronically low, or stress-reactive trajectory. Finally, we present directions for future research with translational implications.
... RewP has been associated with activation of the striatum and medial PFC (Carlson et al., 2011;Foti, Carlson, Sauder, & Proudfit, 2014;Foti, Weinberg, Dien, & Hajcak, 2011) and individual differences in reward learning (Bress & Hajcak, 2013). Importantly, RewP demonstrates reliability across development (Kujawa et al., 2018;Luking, Nelson, Infantolino, Sauder, & Hajcak, 2017), suggesting it could have utility for detecting suicidality risk across time. Gray's (1990) motivational theory, neurophysiological indicators of RR likely reflect one facet of the larger behavioral activation system (BAS), which drives approach motivation and appetitive behavior. ...
... The monetary reward task was adapted from an established ERP task (Bress, Meyer, & Proudfit, 2015;Kujawa et al., 2018). At the beginning of each trial, participants were presented with two doors and instructed to select a door that might have a prize behind it. ...
... Interestingly, the magnitude of RewP in the active suicidality group was comparable to that previously observed in healthy adolescents (Kujawa et al., 2018), whereas depressed adolescents without active suicidality tended to exhibit blunted RewP. Suicidality in the context of depression may not be associated with abnormally elevated RR compared to adolescents in general, but instead may be characterized by enhanced RR compared to the pattern typically observed in depression. ...
Article
Full-text available
Background Suicidality in youth is a major public health problem and objective methods for identifying those at greatest risk are critically needed. Suicidality has been associated with alterations in reward‐related decision‐making, but the extent to which measures of reward responsiveness (RR) can differentiate youth with and without suicidality in clinical samples remains unclear. Methods We examined reliable and accessible neurophysiological (i.e., reward positivity [RewP] event‐related potential) and self‐report (Behavioral Activation System subscales) measures of RR in relation to active suicidality in 58 clinically depressed adolescents (14‐ to 18‐year‐olds). Results Logistic regression analysis indicated that active suicidality in depressed adolescents was associated with heightened RR at both the self‐report and neurophysiological levels. A relatively more positive RewP to win and a more negative RewP to loss uniquely predicted active suicidality beyond demographic, clinical, and self‐report measures. Conclusions Results support the utility of neurophysiological measures in differentiating clinically depressed adolescents with and without suicidality. Although depression is commonly characterized by reduced RR, depressed adolescents with active suicidality exhibited relatively enhanced neural responses to reward and loss feedback. Results highlight the need for consideration of heterogeneity in RR in depression and research on personalized depression treatment.
... The ERP literature of reward processing has focused on the component of reward positivity (RewP), a positive deflection peaking around 250-350 ms in response to the feedback stimuli (win or loss; Proudfit, 2015). The RewP is typically larger in response to the wins versus the losses and is considered an neural index of reward sensitivity, with a larger RewP toward the wins reflecting heightened reward sensitivity and a smaller RewP indicating blunted reward sensitivity (Kujawa et al., 2018). ...
... We identified three factors that were temporally and spatially similar to the RewP, the aLPP, and the pLPP reported the literature, respectively. As shown in Fig. 1, the TF05SF1 factor (peak channel FCz, peak latency 228 ms) accounted for 2.8 % variance and was analogous to the RewP (Brush et al., 2023;Kujawa et al., 2018;Proudfit, 2015). The TF02SF1 factor (peak channel FCz, peak latency 844 ms) of 7.4 % variance was characteristic of the aLPP previously reported in reward paradigms (Pornpattananangkul and Nusslock, 2015;van Meel et al., 2005). ...
Article
Full-text available
Objective Early adolescence is marked by elevated psychopathology, including disrupted eating attitudes and behaviors. Reward processing is an identified mechanism in portending eating pathology, that is, aberrant reward responsivity may contribute to disrupted reward‐seeking behaviors (e.g., food consuming). This literature has focused on adults or mid‐to‐late adolescents, with little work done on early adolescence. We examined the linkages between reward feedback processing, indexed by event‐related potentials (ERPs), and changes of emerging disordered eating in community‐dwelling early adolescents. Method At T1, 115 youths (66 girls, mean/SD age = 11.00/1.16 years) completed an EEG monetary reward Doors task. Youths completed the Eating Disorder Examination‐Questionnaire Short at T1 and ~6 months (T2) and ~12 months (T3) after T1. In the ERP data, we isolated a reward positivity (RewP) and a late positive potential (LPP) via principal component analysis. We applied multilevel modeling to examine whether baseline ERPs interacted with Time in predicting disordered eating and whether these interactions varied by sex. Results We found a significant Time × LPP interaction in girls but not boys. Among girls, only those with a smaller LPP toward the losses (versus wins), which might reflect suboptimal evaluation and regulatory processes in undesired situations, showed increases in disordered eating from T1 to T3. Discussion We provided preliminary yet novel evidence concerning the prospective associations between reward processing and changes of disordered eating in early adolescents. Future studies along this line will be critical for understanding the early mechanisms of eating pathology, identifying youths at risk, and developing prevention strategies.
... The ERP literature of reward processing has focused on the component of reward positivity (RewP), a positive deflection peaking around 250-350 ms in response to the feedback stimuli (win or loss; Proudfit, 2015). The RewP is typically larger in response to the wins versus the losses and is considered an neural index of reward sensitivity, with a larger RewP toward the wins reflecting heightened reward sensitivity and a smaller RewP indicating blunted reward sensitivity (Kujawa et al., 2018). ...
... We identified three factors that were temporally and spatially similar to the RewP, the aLPP, and the pLPP reported the literature, respectively. As shown in Fig. 1, the TF05SF1 factor (peak channel FCz, peak latency 228 ms) accounted for 2.8 % variance and was analogous to the RewP (Brush et al., 2023;Kujawa et al., 2018;Proudfit, 2015). The TF02SF1 factor (peak channel FCz, peak latency 844 ms) of 7.4 % variance was characteristic of the aLPP previously reported in reward paradigms (Pornpattananangkul and Nusslock, 2015;van Meel et al., 2005). ...
... In particular, the reward positivity (RewP) is an ERP component indexing reward responsiveness that typically emerges around 250 ms after feedback onset over frontocentral sites and is enhanced for reward compared to loss feedback (Proudfit, 2015). RewP has demonstrated good reliability across development (Bress et al., 2015;Kujawa et al., 2018), supporting its potential for informing prognosis and treatment planning. Prior research indicates that a reduced RewP predicts a better response to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment in adults (Burkhouse et al., 2016(Burkhouse et al., , 2018, and greater depressive symptom reductions following CBT in anxious youth (Kujawa et al., 2019a, b). ...
... To assess reward responsiveness at the neural level, participants completed a monetary reward task that has been tested extensively across development (e.g., Bress et al., 2015;Kujawa et al., 2018). Two doors were presented on the screen and participants were instructed to select a door, which may have a prize behind it. ...
Article
Earlier depression onsets are associated with more debilitating courses and poorer life quality, highlighting the importance of effective early intervention. Many youths fail to improve with evidence-based treatments for depression, likely due in part to heterogeneity within the disorder. Multi-method assessment of individual differences in positive and negative emotion processing could improve predictions of treatment outcomes. The current study examined self-report and neurophysiological measures of reward responsiveness and emotion regulation as predictors of response to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Adolescents (14-18 years) with depression (N = 70) completed monetary reward and emotion regulation tasks while electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded, and self-report measures of reward responsiveness, emotion regulation, and depressive symptoms at intake. Adolescents then completed a 16-session group CBT program, with depressive symptoms and clinician-rated improvement assessed across treatment. Lower reward positivity amplitudes, reflecting reduced neural reward responsiveness, predicted lower depressive symptoms with treatment. Larger late positive potential residuals during reappraisal, potentially reflecting difficulty with emotion regulation, predicted greater clinician-rated improvement. Self-report measures were not significant predictors. Results support the clinical utility of EEG measures, with impairments in positive and negative emotion processing predicting greater change with interventions that target these processes.
... 13 Finally, a third study, which employed a subset of participants from the current investigation, examined a wider window of development and found that RewP magnitude did not significantly change across 3 assessments that included late childhood, early adolescence, and middle adolescence. 7 ...
... The same electroencephalography (EEG) recording and processing parameters used in previous studies were implemented in the current study. 7,37 Continuous EEG was recoded with a 34electrode elastic cap (32 channels with FCz and Iz added) with sites placed according to the 10/20 system using a BioSemi system (BioSemi B.V., Amsterdam, Netherlands). Electro-oculography was recorded using 4 additional facial electrodes: 1 each placed approximately 1 cm outside the left and right eyes and 2 placed approximately 1 cm above and below the right eye. ...
Article
Objective: Lower neural response to reward predicts subsequent depression during adolescence. Pubertal development and biological sex each have important effects on reward system development and depression during this period. However, relationships among these variables across the transition from childhood to adolescence are not well characterized. Method: Depressive symptoms, pubertal status, and the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential component, a neural indicator of reward responsivity, were assessed in 609 community-recruited youth at ages 9, 12, and 15. Structural equation modeling was used to examine concurrent and prospective relationships within and between depression and the RewP, as well as the influence of pubertal status and biological sex on these variables across assessments. Results: Stability paths for depression, the RewP, and pubertal status were significant across assessments. Compared to male participants, female youth reported more advanced pubertal status at all assessments, a smaller RewP at age 9 and higher levels of depression at age 15. More advanced pubertal status was associated with a larger RewP at age 15. Most importantly, there were bidirectional prospective effects between the RewP and depression from ages 12 to 15; a lower RewP at age 12 predicted increases in depression at age 15, whereas increased depression at age 12 predicted a lower RewP at age 15. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that there are bidirectional prospective effects between reward responsiveness and depression that emerge between ages 12 and 15. This may be a crucial time for studying bidirectional reward responsiveness-depression associations across time.
... The RewP is calculated as the differential response to gain minus loss feedback, and it is a positive deflection peaking approximately 300 ms after gain compared to loss (Levinson et al., 2017;Proudfit, 2015). The RewP has demonstrated good psychometric properties in test-retest reliability (Kujawa et al., 2018;Levinson et al., 2017). Furthermore, the RewP magnitudes are positively related to behavioural or self-report measures of reward responsiveness as well as neural reactivity in reward-related brain regions such as the Ventral Striatum (VS) and medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting its construct validity (Bress & Hajcak, 2013;Carlson et al., 2011;Proudfit, 2015). ...
... reward responsiveness) moderate the relationship between stress and anxiety/depression during the final examination week. Note that reward responsiveness was only measured on T1, and we presented the residual RewP as a measure of trait-like reward responsiveness due to its relative stability over time (Kujawa et al., 2018;Levinson et al., 2017). Four models were separately carried out to explore the moderating effects of residual RewP on the stress-mental health (anxiety and depression) relationship during stress reactivity and recovery phases. ...
Article
Both stress and blunted reward responsiveness have been identified as core risk factors of depression. Whether blunted reward responsiveness increases psychological vulnerability to real-life stress from a dynamic perspective (from stress reactivity to recovery) has not been investigated. By utilizing a real-world stressful event (i.e. the final examination), this study aimed to explore the role of reward responsiveness in the stress-emotional distress relationship during stress reactivity and recovery phases. We followed 57 undergraduates with three assessments, from six weeks before examination weeks (T1, baseline), one day before the examinations (T2) to two weeks after the examinations (T3), therefore, covering stress reactivity (T1 to T2) and recovery (T2 to T3) phases. At baseline, reward responsiveness was measured as the Reward Positivity (RewP) in the doors task. Stress and emotional distress (anxiety and depression) were reported at T1, T2 and T3 to capture their dynamic changes. Results showed that self-report stress levels significantly increased from T1 to T2 (stress reactivity phase) and decreased from T2 to T3 (stress recovery phase). Furthermore, blunted reward responsiveness at baseline prospectively predicted emotional distress during the stress reactivity phase but not the recovery phase. Specifically, during the stress reactivity phase, higher perceived stress was associated with greater anxiety and depression only in participants with relatively smaller residual RewP amplitudes but not in participants with relatively larger residual RewP amplitudes. Our study demonstrated that a blunted reward responsiveness is a vulnerable factor of depression, especially when exposed to stress. Our findings provide insights into prevention and intervention for stress-related disturbance.
... Studies vary in their description of the developmental trajectory of the RewP across adolescence, perhaps because the magnitude of the component reflects the coordinated activity of multiple brain regions, each developing at different rates. Although some data from both longitudinal (Kujawa et al., 2018) and cross-sectional studies (Bowers et al., 2018;Lukie et al., 2014) have suggested the magnitude of the RewP is stable across adolescence, other studies have J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f found age-related differences in the RewP, although they do not all agree on the direction of change (Arbel et al., 2018;Burani et al., 2019;Crowley et al., 2013;Hämmerer et al., 2013;Zottoli & Grose-Fifer, 2012). ...
... Moreover, unlike striatal response to rewards, which appear to have an inverted u-shaped developmental trajectory from childhood to emerging adulthood (Braams et al., 2015;Galván, 2013), the RewP was not significantly associated-either linearly or quadratically-with the age of our participants, consistent with some prior cross-sectional and prospective research that the RewP remains stable across adolescent development (e.g. Kujawa et al., 2018;Lukie et al., 2014). Nonetheless, our results suggest that age is an important factor in understanding associations between neural reward response and risk-taking behavior. ...
Article
Full-text available
Risk-taking peaks in adolescence and reflects, in part, hyperactivity of the brain’s reward system. However, it has not been established whether the association between reward-related brain activity and risk-taking varies across adolescence. The present study investigated how neural reward sensitivity is associated with laboratory risk-taking in a sample of female adolescents as a function of age. Sixty-three female adolescents ages 10 – 19 completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, a laboratory measure of risk-taking behavior, as well as a forced choice monetary gambling task while an electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. This gambling task elicits the reward positivity (RewP), a frontocentral event-related potential component that is sensitive to feedback signaling reward. We observed a negative quadratic association between age and risk-taking, such that those in early and late adolescence had lower relative risk-taking compared to mid-adolescence, with risk-taking peaking at around 15 years of age. In predicting risk-taking, we observed an interaction between age and RewP, such that reward-related brain activity was not associated with risk-taking in early adolescence but was associated with a greater propensity for risk in later adolescence. These findings suggest that for females, neural response to rewards is an important factor in predicting risk-taking only in later adolescence.
... The task elicits a series of ERP components that are differentially modulated by peer acceptance and rejection feedback . Although neural responses to social feedback appear to be more complex than those observed in response to monetary feedback (Kujawa et al., , 2018, two components consistently emerge in response to peer rejection and acceptance feedback in this task and appear particularly relevant to depression risk: Reward positivity (RewP) and N1 (Babinski, Kujawa, Kessel, Arfer, & Klein, in press;Ethridge et al., 2017;. ...
... More recent evidence from temporospatial principal component analyses (PCA) and other methods indicate that this component is better characterized by a positivity that is enhanced in response to positive performance and reward feedback and reduced to negative feedback (for a review, see Proudfit, 2015). Consistent with this, using PCAs on ERP data obtained from both social and monetary reward tasks in children and adolescents, we found that a positive component consistent with the RewP consistently emerges in response to both social and monetary reward feedback (Kujawa et al., 2018. Most research on RewP uses performance or monetary reward tasks. ...
Article
Problems in mother–child relationships are thought to be key to the intergenerational transmission of depression. To evaluate neural and behavioral processes involved in these pathways, we tested effects of maternal depression and maternal-child relationship quality in early childhood on neural and interviewer-based indicators of social processes in adolescence. At age 3, children and mothers ( N = 332) completed an observational parenting measure and diagnostic interviews with mothers. At age 12, adolescents completed a task in which event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in response to peer acceptance and rejection feedback and interviews to assess peer stress. Lower mother–child relationship quality at age 3 was associated with enhanced reactivity to rejection, as measured by N1, and greater peer stress at age 12. Indirect effects of maternal depression through mother–child relationship quality were observed for N1 and peer stress. Findings inform understanding of disruptions in social functioning that are likely to be relevant to the intergenerational transmission of depression.
... Electroencephalogram (EEG) methods are economical and accessible neural measures that can be applied to objectively assess emotional responses, and RDoC-informed research has begun to characterize the construct validity of EEG measures for assessing PVS and NVS function in depression (e.g., [20,13,21]). In particular, the reward positivity (RewP) and late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential (ERP) components are reliably elicited in response to reward feedback and salient emotional images, respectively [22,23]. Further, the RewP to rewards and LPP to emotional images correlate with individual differences in other facets of PVS/NVS function, including self-reported and observed affect [20,21,24]. ...
Article
Full-text available
Depression is a prevalent, debilitating, and costly disorder that often manifests in adolescence. There is an urgent need to understand core pathophysiological processes for depression to inform more targeted intervention efforts. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Positive Valence Systems (PVS) and Negative Valence Systems (NVS) have both been implicated in depression symptomatology and vulnerability; however, the nature of NVS alterations is unclear across studies, and associations between single neural measures and symptoms are often small in magnitude and inconsistent. The present study advances characterization of depression in adolescence via an innovative data-driven approach to identifying subgroups of PVS and NVS function by integrating multiple neural measures (assessed by electroencephalogram [EEG]) relevant to depression in adolescents oversampled for clinical depression and depression risk based on maternal history (N = 129; 14–17 years old). Results of the k-means cluster analysis supported a two-cluster solution wherein one cluster was characterized by relatively attenuated reward and emotion responsiveness across valences and the other by relatively intact responsiveness. Youth in the attenuated responsiveness cluster reported significantly greater depressive symptoms and were more likely to have major depressive disorder diagnoses than youth in the intact responsiveness cluster. In contrast, associations of individual neural measures with depressive symptoms were non-significant. The present study highlights the importance of innovative neuroscience approaches to characterize emotional processing in depression across domains, which is imperative to advancing the clinical utility of RDoC-informed research.
... In the larger study, the Doors task (Dunning & Hajcak, 2007;Foti & Hajcak, 2009;Kujawa, Smith, et al., 2013;Kujawa et al., 2014Kujawa et al., , 2018) was used to probe initial responsiveness to reward attainment and here, a portion of the task was conceptualized as probing affect regulation. The task consisted of 120 trials in total, presented in two blocks of 30 trials/condition. ...
Article
Although atypical theta and alpha activity may be biomarkers of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) outcomes such as atypical affective processing and attention, the exact nature of the relations of these characteristics is unknown. We examined in age- and sex-matched adolescents (N = 132; Mage = 14.944, years, SD = .802) with and without ADHD, whether resting state (RS) theta and alpha power or theta and alpha event-related synchronization (ERS) during affect regulation (1) differ between adolescents with and without ADHD; (2) are differentially associated with event-related potential (ERP) and parent- and self-report measures of affective processing and inattention, given ADHD status and sex, and (3) are differentially lateralized, given ADHD status and sex. Adolescents with ADHD exhibited lower RS frontal-midline alpha power than adolescents without ADHD. In adolescents with ADHD, right parietal theta ERS was positively associated with the ERP measure of elaborate affective/motivational processing and right parietal RS alpha power was negatively associated with self-reported positive affectivity. In adolescents without ADHD, associations were nonsignificant. There was no disassociation of theta and alpha activity with affective processing and inattention. Consistent with clinical impressions, the between-group difference in frontal-midline theta ERS was more marked in boys than girls.
... During fMRI participants completed a guessing task, the Doors task (Kujawa et al., 2018), designed to probe initial reward response. The task consisted of 80 trials in total, presented in two blocks of 40 trials/condition. ...
Article
Full-text available
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a heterogeneous disorder. Data on the role of transdiagnostic, intermediate phenotypes in ADHD-relevant characteristics and outcomes are needed to advance conceptual understanding and approaches to precision psychiatry. Specifically, the extent to which the association between neural response to reward and ADHD-associated affective, externalizing, internalizing, and substance use problems differ depending on ADHD status is unknown. Aims were to examine, in 129 adolescents, whether concurrent and prospective associations of fMRI-measured initial response to reward attainment (relative to loss) with affectivity and externalizing, internalizing, and alcohol use problems differs between youth at-risk for (i.e., subclinical) (n = 50) and not at-risk for ADHD. Adolescents were, on average, 15.29 years old (SD = 1.00; 38% female), 50 were at-risk for (Mage = 15.18 years, SD = 1.04; 22% female) and 79 not at-risk for (Mage = 15.37 years, SD = 0.98; 48.1% female) ADHD. Both concurrent and prospective relations differed given ADHD risk: across analyses, in at-risk youth, greater superior frontal gyrus response was associated with lower concurrent depressive problems but in not at-risk youth, these characteristics were not related. Controlling for baseline use, in at-risk youth, greater putamen response was associated with greater 18-month hazardous alcohol use, whereas in not at-risk youth, greater putamen response was associated with lower use. Where in brain and for which outcomes modulate (direction of) observed relations: superior frontal gyrus response is relevant for depressive problems whereas putamen response is relevant for alcohol problems and greater neural responsivity is linked to less depressive but to more alcohol problems in adolescents at-risk for ADHD and less alcohol problems in adolescents not at-risk. Differences in neural response to reward differentially confer vulnerability for adolescent depressive and alcohol problems depending on ADHD risk.
... 3C). Meanwhile, pediatric ERP mean amplitude studies( Cremone- Caira et al., 2020 ;Kujawa et al., 2018Kujawa et al., , 2013Munsters et al., 2019 ;Taylor et al., 2016 ;Webb et al., 2022 ) only reached fair reliability ( ICC = 0.52, n = 29 measurements, SE = 0.04). Pediatric mean amplitude reliability also did not demonstrate a specific trend as time to retest increased (range = 1.5 weeks -6 years; seeFig. ...
Article
Full-text available
Electroencephalographic (EEG) methods have great potential to serve both basic and clinical science approaches to understand individual differences in human neural function. Importantly, the psychometric properties of EEG data, such as internal consistency and test-retest reliability, constrain their ability to differentiate individuals successfully. Rapid and recent technological and computational advancements in EEG research make it timely to revisit the topic of psychometric reliability in the context of individual difference analyses. Moreover, pediatric and clinical samples provide some of the most salient and urgent opportunities to apply individual difference approaches, but the changes these populations experience over time also provide unique challenges from a psychometric perspective. Here we take a developmental neuroscience perspective to consider progress and new opportunities for parsing the reliability and stability of individual differences in EEG measurements across the lifespan. We first conceptually map the different profiles of measurement reliability expected for different types of individual difference analyses over the lifespan. Next, we summarize and evaluate the state of the field's empirical knowledge and need for testing measurement reliability, both internal consistency and test-retest reliability, across EEG measures of power, event-related potentials, nonlinearity, and functional connectivity across ages. Finally, we highlight how standardized pre-processing software for EEG denoising and empirical metrics of individual data quality may be used to further improve EEG-based individual differences research moving forward. We also include recommendations and resources throughout that individual researchers can implement to improve the utility and reproducibility of individual differences analyses with EEG across the lifespan.
... The RewP is thought to reflect dopaminergic reward signaling (35) and J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f to originate from the anterior cingulate cortex and striatum (36)(37)(38)(39). This component has good internal consistency and is relatively stable over time (40)(41)(42) and development (43). ...
Article
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has been a prolonged period of stress due to social isolation, illness, death, and other major life disruptions. Neural reward sensitivity, essential for healthy functioning, may become reduced under major naturalistic stressors, though few studies have examined this. The present study sought to test whether neural responses to rewards were significantly blunted by the stress of the pandemic. Methods: We compared two groups of young adult participants, who completed a monetary reward task while EEG was recorded, at two timepoints, one to three years apart. Our measure of reward sensitivity was the Reward Positivity (RewP), a neural marker enhanced to gain relative to loss feedback. The magnitude of the RewP is sensitive to stress exposure and can prospectively predict depression. The pre-pandemic group (N = 41) completed both timepoints before the pandemic while the pandemic group (N = 39) completed the baseline visit before the pandemic and the follow-up visit during its second year. Results: The pandemic group reported having experienced significant stressors over the course of the pandemic. We did not observe a significant decrease in the RewP from baseline to follow-up in the pre-pandemic group. In contrast, in the pandemic group, the RewP was significantly blunted at the follow-up visit to the extent that it no longer distinguished gain from loss feedback. Conclusion: These results suggest that prolonged naturalistic stressors can result in adaptations in neural responses to rewards. Our findings also highlight a possible mechanism linking stress to the development of depression.
... The ventral striatum of adolescents has been reported to be hypersensitive to the expectation of both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards (Demurie et al., 2011(Demurie et al., , 2012Galvan, 2013;Kohls et al., 2009). Therefore, the development of the reward system is regarded as nonlinear development (Bjork et al., 2010;Ernst et al., 2005;Ethridge et al., 2017;Kujawa et al., 2018;Lamm et al., 2014;Somerville and Casey, 2010). ...
Article
Full-text available
Reward is deemed a performance reinforcer. The current study investigated how social and monetary reward anticipation affected cognitive control in 39 children, 40 adolescents, and 40 adults. We found that cognitive control performance improved with age in a Simon task, and the reaction time (RT) was modulated by the reward magnitude. The conflict monitoring process (target N2 amplitudes) of adolescents and the attentional control processes (target P3 amplitudes) of adolescents and adults could be adjusted by reward magnitude, suggesting that adolescents were more sensitive to rewards compared to children. Reward magnitudes influenced the neural process of attentional control with larger P3 in congruent trails than that in incongruent trials only in low reward condition. The result of hierarchical drift-diffusion model indicated that children had slower drift rates, higher decision threshold, and longer non-decision time than adolescents and adults. Adolescents had faster drift rates in monetary task than in social task under the high reward condition, and they had faster drift rates under high reward condition than no reward condition only in the monetary task. The correlation analysis further showed that adults’ non-decision time and decision threshold correlated with conflict monitoring process (N2 responses) and attentional control process on conflicts (P3 responses). Adolescents’ drift rates associated with neural process of attentional control. The current study reveals that reward magnitude and reward type can modulate cognitive control process, especially in adolescents.
... The striatum, a subcortical brain region linked to reward evaluation, has been consistently shown to be sensitive to monetary rewards in the MID task in studies of adults (Knutson et al., 2000); however, few studies have directly examined sex differences in striatal responses. Although brain responses to reward and punishment in non-clinical adult samples have been extensively examined (Kujawa et al., 2018;Liu et al., 2011), fMRI investigations into how sex influences these processes have been limited. Behavioral data indicate that such sex differences likely exist, revealing that females are generally more sensitive to reward and punishment than males (Cross et al., 2011;Miettunen et al., 2007;Santesso et al., 2011). ...
Article
Full-text available
Abnormalities in responses to reward and loss are implicated in the etiology of antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits. Although there is evidence for sex differences in neural response to reward and loss, it remains unclear how sex differences may moderate links between these neural responses and the phenotypic expression of antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits. This study examined sex differences in associations of neural response to reward and loss with antisocial personality symptoms and psychopathic traits. Functional neuroimaging data were collected during a monetary incentive delay task from 158 participants. Among males, during loss anticipation, activation in the left nucleus accumbens was negatively associated with antisocial behavior. Among females, during loss feedback, activation in the left nucleus accumbens and left amygdala was negatively associated with antisocial behavior. These results suggest that phenotypic sex differences in psychopathic traits and antisocial behavior may in part be attributable to different etiological pathways.
... To address this question, we examined children's neural reactivity to monetary gains and losses with the Doors task, which is a commonly used laboratory-based task designed to assess neural responses to reward (Proudfit, 2015). The Doors task has been used in both children (e.g., Kessel et al., 2016;Kujawa, Proudfit, & Klein, 2014;Tsypes, Owens, Hajcak, & Gibb, 2017, 2018 and adults (e.g., Weinberg, Riesel, & Proudfit, 2014) and is a simple guessing paradigm during which participants are presented with an image of two identical doors and are asked to choose which of the doors has a monetary prize behind it. Following their choices, participants are provided with feedback regarding the accuracy of their decisions, resulting in either a gain or loss of prize money. ...
Article
Parental criticism is linked to a number of detrimental child outcomes. One mechanism by which parental criticism may increase risk for negative outcomes in children is through children’s neural responses to valenced information in the environment. The goal of the current study, therefore, was to examine the relation between maternal criticism and children’s neural responses to monetary gains and losses. To represent daily environmental experiences of reward and punishment, we focused on reactivity to monetary gains versus losses in a guessing task. Participants were 202 children and their mothers recruited from the community. The average age of the children was 9.71 years (SD = 1.38, range = 7–11), with 52.0% of them male and 72.8% Caucasian. Mothers completed the Five Minute Speech Sample to assess expressed emotion–criticism, and of these dyads 51 mothers were rated as highly critical. In addition, children completed a simple guessing game during which electroencephalography was recorded. Children of critical mothers displayed less neural reactivity to both monetary gain and loss than children without critical mothers. Our results were at least partially independent of children’s and mothers’ current levels of internalizing psychopathology. These findings suggest that children exposed to maternal criticism may exhibit disruptions in adaptive responses to environmental experiences regardless of valence. Targeted interventions aimed at reducing expressed emotion–criticism may lead to changes in a child’s reward responsiveness and risk for psychopathology.
... The "Doors" reward task has been used to elicit a RewP in children and adolescents (Bress, Smith, Foti, Klein, & Hajcak, 2012) and is reliable across development (Kujawa et al., 2018). We have previously found modest associations between age-3 PE and age-9 RewP in this sample (Kujawa et al., 2015). ...
Article
To identify sources of phenotypic heterogeneity in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) accounting for diversity in developmen-tal/ pathogenic pathways, we examined, in a large sample of youth (N = 354), (a) associations between observed temperamental emotionality at age 3, an electrocortical index (i.e., reward positivity [RewP]) of initial responsiveness to reward at age 9, and ADHD symptoms at age 12, and (b) whether the association between emotionality and ADHD symptoms is mediated by initial responsiveness to reward. Bivariate analyses indicated greater positive emotionality (PE) was associated with enhanced RewP, lower age-9ADHD and lower age-12 inattention (IA). Negative emotionality (NE) was not associated with RewP or ADHD. Mediation analyses revealed the association between PE and hyper-activity/impulsivity (H/I) was mediated by RewP; enhanced RewP was associated with greater H/I. Greater PE was associated with enhanced RewP at a trend level. These effects held accounting for age-9 ADHD, age-12 IA and age-12 oppositional defiant and conduct disorder symptoms. As such, preschool emotionality is associated with adolescent ADHD-H/I symptoms through late childhood initial responsiveness to reward. These relations indicate that individual differences in emotionality and reward responsiveness may be informative for personalizing ADHD interventions.
... In line with this evidence, an alternative view of the FRN as a positivity triggered by reward rather than a negativity elicited by negative feedback has been proposed. The Reward Positivity (RewP) is suggested to be triggered by the processing of reward, suppressed by losses or negative feedback and generated in the striatum (e.g., Holroyd et al., 2008;Foti et al., 2011;Proudfit, 2015;Kujawa et al., 2018). Larger RewP has been reported to be associated with higher self-report scores on the Reward Responsiveness Scale (Bress et al., 2012), and with a greater response bias to make richly rewarded decisions (Bress and Hajcak, 2013). ...
Article
Full-text available
The study aimed at evaluating the extent to which the feedback related negativity (FRN), an ERP component associated with feedback processing, is related to learning in school-age children. Eighty typically developing children between the ages of 8 and 11 years completed a declarative learning task while their EEG was recorded. The study evaluated the predictive value of the FRN on learning retention as measured by accuracy on a follow-up test a day after the session. The FRN elicited by positive feedback was found to be predictive of learning retention in children. The relationship between the FRN and learning was moderated by age. The P3a was also found to be associated with learning, such that larger P3a to negative feedback was associated with better learning retention in children.
... To our knowledge, ERP studies on development of incentive processing from childhood to adolescence exclusively focused on outcome components (Crowley et al., 2013;Ferdinand et al., 2016;Hämmerer et al., 2011;Kujawa et al., 2017), particularly on RewP/FRN. While some studies reported a decrease in RewP/FRN amplitudes from childhood to adolescence (e.g. ...
Article
Full-text available
Reward and punishment processing are subject to substantial developmental changes during youth. However, little is known about the neurophysiological correlates that are associated with these developmental changes, particularly with regard to both anticipatory and outcome processing stages. Thus, the aim of this study was to address this research gap in a sample of typically developing children and adolescents. Fifty-four children and adolescents (8–18 years) performed a Monetary Incentive Delay Task comprising a monetary reward and punishment condition. Using event-related brain potential recordings, the cue-P3 and the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) were analyzed during the anticipation phase, while the Reward Positivity and the feedback-P3 were analyzed during the outcome phase. When anticipating monetary loss or no gain, SPN amplitude in the right hemisphere decreased with age. Moreover, exploratory analyses revealed a decrease in feedback-P3 amplitudes in response to monetary loss with increasing age. No other group differences were observed. Age-related changes in the SPN and fP3 component suggest that sensitivity to negative outcomes decreases from childhood to late adolescence, supporting the notion that adolescence is associated with reduced harm-avoidance. Longitudinal research including young adults is needed to substantiate our findings and its clinical implications regarding disturbed developmental trajectories in psychiatric populations.
... Based on the dual-system theory, the reward system and cognitive control system interact and jointly influence the dynamic changes in rewardrelated behaviors during individual development (Steinberg, 2008;Galvan, 2010;Shulman et al., 2016;McKewen et al., 2019). Reward system is considered to develop non-linearly (Ernst et al., 2005;Bjork et al., 2010;Blakemore and Robbins, 2012;Albert et al., 2013;Lamm et al., 2014;Luking, 2015;Ethridge et al., 2017;Kujawa et al., 2018). Adolescents show hypersensitivity to both social and non-social rewards (Martin et al., 2002;Bjork et al., 2004;Cohen et al., 2005;Ernst et al., 2005;Galvan et al., 2006;Casey et al., 2008;Steinberg, 2008;Geier and Luna, 2009;Forbes et al., 2010;Galvan, 2010;Geier et al., 2010;Simon et al., 2010;Van Leijenhorst et al., 2010;Wahlstrom et al., 2010;Spear, 2011;Nees et al., 2012;Urošević et al., 2012;Hoogendam et al., 2013;Kennis et al., 2013;Richards et al., 2013;Lamm et al., 2014;Weigard et al., 2014;Braams et al., 2015;Silverman et al., 2015;Foulkes and Blakemore, 2016;Shulman et al., 2016;Steinberg et al., 2017). ...
Article
Full-text available
Adolescence is an essential developmental period characterized by reward-related processes. The current study investigated the development of monetary and social reward processes in adolescents compared with that in children and adults; furthermore, it assessed whether adolescents had different levels of sensitivity to various types of rewards. Two adapted incentive delay tasks were employed for each participant, and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The behavioral results showed that both monetary and social rewards could motivate response speed, and participants were more accurate under the monetary reward condition than under the social reward condition. The behavioral performances of individuals increased with age. For the ERP data, the cue-P3, target-P2, target-P3 and feedback-related negativity (FRN) components were investigated to identify reward motivation, emotional arousal, attention allocation and feedback processing. Children and adolescents showed higher motivation (larger cue-P3) to rewards than adults. Adolescents showed larger emotional responses to rewards; that is, they had larger target-P2 amplitudes than adults and shorter target-P2 latencies than children. Children showed stronger emotional reactivity for monetary rewards than for social rewards. All age groups had stronger attentional control (larger target-P3) under the monetary reward condition than under the social reward condition. The present study sheds light on the neurodevelopment of reward processes in children, adolescents and adults and shows that various reward process stages demonstrate different age-related and reward-type-related characteristics.
... The FRN is triggered by the delivery of feedback in various learning (e.g., Arbel et al., 2013;Arbel et al., 2014;Ernst and Steinhauser, 2012;Krigolson et al., 2009;Luft, 2014;Pietschmann et al., 2008;Sailer et al., 2010;van der Helden et al., 2010) and gambling tasks (e.g., Goyer et al., 2008;Hajcak et al., 2007;Gehring and Willoughby, 2002). An alternative interpretation of what has become to be known as the FRN posits that this feedback-related activation is not a negativity but rather a positivity, namely the Reward Positivity (RewP), which is triggered by the processing of a reward or positive feedback, suppressed by losses or negative feedback and generated in the striatum (e.g., Foti et al., 2011;Kujawa et al., 2018). Although the FRN and RewP refer to the same observed ERP activation, the labeling is significant as it affects the discussion of the functional significance of the component. ...
Article
The study evaluated the effect of task difficulty on feedback processing as measured by the feedback related event related potentials (ERPs) in 7–11-years-old children. Children completed two declarative learning tasks that differed in the number of object-name pairs they were required to learn, deeming the task with twice as many pairs as more difficult. EEG was recorded during the tasks, and event related potentials time-locked to the feedback presentation were analyzed. Additionally, Accuracy was measured in test block at the end of each task. Behaviorally, children achieved better accuracy on the easy task than on the difficult task. In line with previous findings in adults, the FRN was not found sensitive to task difficulty. However, a feedback-related P300 and a fronto-central positivity that followed the FRN were found sensitive to task difficulty such that their amplitudes were larger in the easy task. This pattern is opposite to that reported previously in adults and may reflect the effect of motivation on attention allocation in children.
Preprint
Full-text available
Reward processing is a hypothesized ADHD intermediate phenotype and, as such, is suggested to improve prediction of relevant outcomes, above and beyond the clinical phenotype. Although both reward and punishment processing and ADHD are associated with CU traits, gaps in knowledge remain about adolescents, electrophysiological indices, and longitudinal relations. We examined, in N = 297 adolescents, whether accounting for ODD and sex, ERPs to gain and loss moderate the prospective association between ADHD symptoms and CU traits and whether any moderational effects are driven by ADHD risk status and domain of symptoms. Findings indicated ADHD symptoms were positively associated with Uncaring traits at low ( b = .255, SE = .109, p = .020; 95% CI[.040, .469]), but not at moderate ( b = .136, SE = .078, p = .085; 95% CI[-.019, .291]) or high ( b = .016, SE = .080, p = .842; 95% CI[-.142, .174]) levels of Target P3, with this moderational effect apparent in adolescents at-risk for ADHD, for inattention symptoms ( F (6, 92) = 2.299, Δ R ² = .138, p = .010). Electrophysiological reward and punishment processing improves prediction of CU traits above and beyond the ADHD clinical phenotype; in adolescents at-risk for ADHD, low electrophysiological response links elevated inattention symptoms to greater Uncaring traits whereas moderate and higher response may be protective.
Article
Depression is a prevalent, heterogeneous, and debilitating disorder that often emerges in adolescence, and there is a need to better understand vulnerability processes to inform more targeted intervention efforts. Psychophysiological methods, like event‐related potentials (ERPs), can offer unique insights into the cognitive and emotional processes underlying depression vulnerability. I review my and others' research examining ERP measures of reward responsiveness in youth depression and present a conceptual model of the development of low reward responsiveness, its role in depression vulnerability, and potential windows for targeted intervention. There is evidence that a blunted reward positivity (RewP) is observable in children at risk for depression, appears to be shaped in part by early social experiences, and predicts later depressive symptoms in combination with other risk factors like stress exposure. Further, a component consistent with RewP is reliably elicited in response to social acceptance feedback in computerized peer interaction tasks and demonstrates unique associations with social contextual factors and depressive symptoms, supporting the utility of developing psychophysiological tasks that may better capture youths' real‐world experiences and social risk processes. In addition, I address the translational implications of clinical psychophysiological research and describe a series of studies showing that a reduced RewP predicts greater reductions in depressive symptoms with treatment but is not modifiable by current treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy. Finally, I describe our preliminary efforts to develop a positive emotion‐focused intervention for the offspring of depressed mothers, informed by the RewP literature, and describe future directions for translating psychophysiological research to intervention and prevention.
Article
Electroencephalography (EEG) data processing to derive event‐related potentials (ERPs) follows a standard set of procedures to maximize signal‐to‐noise ratio. This often includes ocular correction, which corrects for artifacts introduced by eye movements, typically measured by electrooculogram (EOG) using facial electrodes near the eyes. Yet, attaching electrodes to the face may be uncomfortable for some populations, best to avoid in some situations, and contribute to data loss. Eye movements can also be measured using electrodes in a standard 10–20 EEG cap. An examination of the impact of electrode selection on ERPs is needed to inform best practices. The present study examined data quality when using different electrodes to measure eye movements for ocular correction (i.e., facial electrodes, cap electrodes, and no ocular correction) for two well‐established and widely studied ERP components (i.e., reward positivity, RewP; and late positive potential, LPP) elicited in adolescents ( N = 34). Results revealed comparable split‐half reliability and standardized measurement error (SME) between facial and cap electrode approaches, with lower SME for the RewP with facial or cap electrodes compared to no ocular correction. Few significant differences in mean amplitude of ERPs were observed, but the LPP to positive images differed when using facial compared to cap electrodes. Findings provide preliminary evidence of the ability to collect high‐quality ERP data without facial electrodes. However, when using cap electrodes for EOG measurement and ocular correction, it is recommended to use consistent procedures across the sample or statistically examine the impact of ocular correction procedures on results.
Article
Very little is known about the mechanisms underlying the development of personality disorders, hindering efforts to address early risk for these costly and stigmatized disorders. In this study, we examined associations between social and monetary reward processing, measured at the neurophysiological level, and personality pathology, operationalized through the Level of Personality Functioning (LPF), in a sample of early adolescent females (Mage = 12.21 years old, SD = 1.21). Female youth with (n = 80) and without (n = 30) a mental health history completed laboratory tasks assessing social and monetary reward responsiveness using electroencephalogram (EEG) and completed ratings of personality pathology. Commonly co-occurring psychopathology, including depression, anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD) were also assessed. At the bivariate level, significant associations did not emerge between psychopathology and reward processing variables. When covarying symptoms of depression, anxiety, ADHD, ODD, and CD, an enhanced reward positivity (RewP) component to social reward feedback (accounting for response to social rejection) was associated with higher levels of personality impairment. Results were specific to social rather than monetary reward processing. Depression, anxiety, and ODD also explained unique variance in LPF. These findings suggest that alterations in social reward processing may be a key marker for early emerging personality pathology. Future work examining the role of social reward processing on the development of LPF across adolescence may guide efforts to prevent the profound social dysfunction associated with personality pathology.
Article
A candidate pathophysiological process in major depressive disorder is diminished neural reactivity to reward delivery, which is theorized to give rise to anhedonia. Reduced amplitude in the reward positivity (RewP), which captures initial reward evaluation, has been linked to current symptoms of depression among child, adolescent, and young adult samples. However, the developmental trajectory of this association is incomplete, with relatively few studies in middle and older adulthood. Further, emerging evidence in the literature also suggests that this association may be linked to female sex-specific processes, but no studies to date have directly contrasted the effect of sex on the depression-RewP association. The current study sought to address these gaps by testing how sex and age may moderate the depression-RewP association within a mature adult community sample. Symptoms of depression were evaluated using a survey and a clinical interview, and the RewP was elicited using a simple guessing task. There was a three-way interaction between depression symptom severity, age, and sex in predicting RewP amplitude. This was driven by younger (late 30's to early 40's) female-sexed people such that for this group, elevated symptoms of depression were associated with blunting of the RewP. This association tapered around age 50. This effect was specific to clinician-rated rather than self-reported depressive symptom severity. This pattern of effects suggests that among female-sexed people, developmental processes continue to shape the association between reward responsiveness and depression throughout middle adulthood.
Article
Initiation of alcohol use at younger ages is prognostic of later drinking problems. Reward system dysfunction is theorized to contribute to early initiation and escalation of drinking, but existing evidence supports both hyposensitivity and hypersensitivity as risk-markers; research employing effective indices of reward processing is needed for clarification. The reward positivity (RewP) is a well-established neurophysiological index of hedonic "liking," an important aspect of reward processing. Adult research has yielded conflicting findings, with different studies reporting reduced, enhanced, or null associations of RewP with engagement in or risk for harmful alcohol use. No study has examined relations between RewP and multiple indices of drinking in youth. Here, we examined how RewP measured in a gain/loss feedback task related to self-reported drinking initiation and past-month drinking, when accounting for age along with depression and externalizing symptoms, in 250 mid-adolescent females. Analyses showed that (1) compared to not-yet drinkers, adolescents endorsing drinking initiation responded less strongly to monetary gain (RewP) but not loss feedback (FN), and (2) past-month drinking was unrelated to both RewP and FN magnitude. These findings provide evidence for reduced hedonic "liking" as a concomitant of early drinking initiation in adolescent females and warrant further research with mixed-sex adolescent samples exhibiting greater drinking variability.
Article
We evaluated event-related potential (ERP) indices of reinforcement sensitivity as ADHD biomarkers by examining, in N=306 adolescents (Mage=15.78, SD=1.08), the extent to which ERP amplitude and latency variables measuring reward anticipation and response (1) differentiate, in age- and sex-matched subsamples, (i) youth with vs. without ADHD, (ii) youth at-risk for vs. not at-risk for ADHD, and, in the with ADHD subsample, (iii) youth with the inattentive vs. the hyperactive/impulsive (H/I) and combined presentations. We further examined the extent to which ERP variables (2) predict, in the ADHD subsample, substance use (i) concurrently and (ii) prospectively at 18-month follow-up. Linear support vector machine analyses indicated ERPs weakly differentiate youth with/without (65%) - and at-risk for/not at-risk for (63%) - ADHD but better differentiate ADHD presentations (78%). Regression analyses showed in adolescents with ADHD, ERPs explain a considerable proportion of variance (50%) in concurrent alcohol use and, controlling for concurrent marijuana and tobacco use, explain a considerable proportion of variance (87 and 87%) in, and predict later marijuana and tobacco use. Findings are consistent with the dual-pathway model of ADHD. Results also highlight limitations of a dichotomous, syndromic classification and indicate differences in neural reinforcement sensitivity are a promising ADHD prognostic biomarker.
Article
Offspring of depressed parents are at an increased risk for depression. Reward- and punishment-based systems might be mechanisms linking maternal outcomes to offspring depression and anhedonia. The current study was designed to investigate the intergenerational relations between maternal markers of reward and punishment responsiveness and their offspring's depression and anhedonia in a community sample of 40 mother (mean age = 44.5; SD = 6.82) and adolescent (mean age = 14.73; SD = 1.25; 52.5% female) dyads. Maternal markers of reward and punishment responsiveness were captured using self-report, behavioral, and neurophysiological methods, and self-reported depression and anhedonia symptoms were used as outcomes among the adolescent offspring. Maternal self-reported reward responsiveness and punishment learning rates were differentially associated with depression across male and female offspring. Regarding anhedonia, maternal punishment learning rate was positively related to adolescent anhedonia regardless of offspring biological sex. Maternal reward learning rate was also positively associated with anhedonia among male offspring. In general, low concurrence across self-report, behavioral, and neurophysiological markers of reward and punishment responsiveness was found. The results from the current study suggest that learning-rates on reinforcement-based behavioral tasks may be important objective markers to consider when evaluating intergenerational risk.
Article
Cross-sectional group comparisons have shown altered neurocognitive and neurophysiological profiles in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We report a two-year longitudinal observational study of ADHD children and adolescents (N = 239) regarding ADHD symptoms, behavioral metrics, and event-related potentials (ERP) and compared them to healthy controls (N = 91). The participants were assessed up to five times with a cued Go/NoGo task while ERPs were recorded. We fitted the trajectories of our variables of interest with univariate and bivariate latent growth curve models. At baseline, the ADHD group had increased reaction time variability, higher number of omission and commission errors, and attenuated CNV and P3d amplitudes compared to controls. The task performance in terms of behavioral metrics improved in both groups over two years; however, with differential patterns: the decrease in reaction time and omission errors were stronger in the control group, and the reduction of commission errors was more substantial in the ADHD group. The cueP3, CNV, and N2d amplitudes changed slightly over two years, with negligible differences between both groups. Furthermore, the parent-rated symptom burden in the ADHD group decreased by 22 % (DSM-5-based questionnaire). We did not identify any associations between the changes in symptoms and the changes in the behavioral or neurophysiological metrics. The lack of association between the changes in symptoms and the behavioral or ERP metrics supports the trait liability hypothesis, which claims that the neurocognitive deficits are independent of symptom alleviation. Furthermore, the change in symptom burden was substantial, questioning the stability of the reported ADHD symptoms.
Article
This review focuses on research my colleagues and I have conducted on etiological pathways to depression. Much of this work has focused on the measurement of neural responses to appetitive cues, using two event-related brain potential (ERP) components, the Late Positive Potential (LPP) and the Reward Positivity (RewP). Reductions in each of these components have been associated with current symptoms of depression, and in some cases have been shown to differentiate anxious from depressive phenotypes. In this review, I will describe three broad and related approaches we have taken in our research to address a series of interdependent issuess. The first attempts to understand different sources of variation in the LPP and RewP, and how these sources interact with one another. The second tries to identify whether variation in the processes measured by these ERP components might reflect a latent vulnerability to depression and its symptoms, that is evident prior to illness onset. And the third examines the possibility that the processes reflected in the LPP and RewP might play a mechanistic role in the development of depression.
Article
Money is the most common medium of exchange and plays an important role in our daily life. However, current literature has not yet specifically touched on the influence of money priming on decision-making behaviour under uncertainty and related neural mechanisms. In this study, we used event-related potentials with an adapted version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) paradigm to examine brain activity related to the effects of money priming on outcome evaluation in decision-making under uncertainty. Reward positivity (RewP) and P300 components were analysed with respect to feedback valence (win vs. loss) and priming condition (money vs. neutral). The ERP results demonstrated that when individuals made decisions after having been primed with the monetary concept, the positive outcome feedback evoked a larger RewP component than after they had been primed with neutral stimuli. Conversely, there was no significant money priming effect when the outcome feedback was negative. In contrast, when individuals made decisions after having been primed with the monetary concept, the negative outcome feedback evoked a larger P300 than after they had been primed with neutral stimuli, whereas there was no significant money priming effect when the outcome feedback was positive. Our findings, thus, indicate that the brain response to money priming effects on the outcome evaluation in the BART occurs at both an early semi-automatic processing stage and a later cognitive appraisal stage. They further suggest that individuals prefer achieving financial gains at first and then focus on preventing financial losses in the money priming condition relative to the neutral priming condition.
Article
Between-individuals variation in neural responses to errors and rewards is associated with the degree of risk for developing depression and anxiety, but not all individuals with perturbations in systems that generate these responses go on to develop symptoms. We propose that exposure to stressful life events may determine when these individual differences in neural responses to errors and rewards result in anxiety or depression. In this article, we review key findings and discuss limitations and questions in research on how stressors interact with reward and error processing to predict the development of symptoms. We conclude by outlining future research directions.
Article
Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct problems exhibit significant variability in functioning and treatment response that cannot be fully accounted for by differences in symptom severity. Reward responsivity (RR) is a potential transdiagnostic means to account for this variability. Irritability and callous-unemotional (CU) traits moderate associations between both ADHD and conduct problems with multiple realms of functioning. Both are theorized to be associated with RR, but associations in clinical samples are unknown. In 48 youth ages 5-12 with ADHD referred for treatment of conduct problems, we examined RR using a guessing task where participants select a door icon to win and lose money. Analyses focused on the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential in response to gain and loss feedback, which reliably peaks approximately 300 ms after feedback. Frequentist and Bayesian approaches assessed main effects of ADHD, Conduct Disorder (CD) and non-irritable Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) symptoms with RR, plus interactions between symptoms and affective dimensions (irritability, CU). CD and ODD were hypothesized to be associated with altered RR, with irritability and CU moderating these associations. Across models, a reliable CD x irritability interaction emerged, indicating enhanced RewP when irritability was elevated and CD symptoms were low. CU did not moderate any associations with RR, and little support was found for associations between RR and other symptom domains. As neural response to reward varied with levels of irritability and CD symptoms, RR may hold potential as a clinically-relevant biomarker in youth with ADHD and conduct problems.
Article
The reward positivity (RewP) is a widely studied measure of neural response to rewards, yet little is known about normative developmental characteristics of the RewP during early childhood. The present study utilized a pooled community sample of 309 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children who participated in the Doors guessing game to examine the latency and amplitude of the RewP. Peak detection of the gain‐loss difference waveform was conducted for electrodes Fz, Cz, Pz, Oz and the mean activity in a 100ms window centered around this peak was analyzed. There was a significant decrease in RewP latency (RewP was earlier) and increase in RewP amplitude (RewP magnitude was larger) with advancing age in this cross‐sectional analysis. Further, these were independent effects, as both RewP latency and RewP amplitude were uniquely associated with children's age. Moreover, our results indicate that the RewP latency in 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds falls outside the 250–350ms window typically used to quantify the RewP (RewP latency in our sample = 381ms; SD = 60.15). The internal consistency for latency (.64) and amplitude (.27) of the RewP were characterized by moderate to low reliability, consistent with previous work on the reliability of difference scores. Overall, results demonstrate RewP differences in both timing and amplitude across age in early childhood, and suggest that both amplitude and latency of the RewP might function as individual difference measures of reward processing. These findings are discussed in the context of methodological considerations and the development of reward processing across early childhood. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Article
Event‐related potential (ERP) measures of reward‐ and error‐related brain activity have emerged as potential biomarkers of risk for the development of psychopathology. However, the psychometric properties of reward‐ and error‐related brain activity have been primarily investigated in adolescents and adults. It is critical to also establish the reliability of ERPs in younger children, particularly if they are used as individual difference measures of risk during key developmental periods. The present study examined the reliability of the reward positivity (RewP) and error‐related negativity (ERN) among 80 children (Mage = 6.9 years old; 50% female). Participants completed the doors, flanker, and go/no‐go tasks twice, separated by approximately 8 months, while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Results indicated that the RewP demonstrated strong internal consistency and test–retest reliability. The ERN also demonstrated strong internal consistency, but test–retest reliability was only significant for the ERN measured during the flanker task and not the go/no‐go task. These results are largely consistent with reported psychometric properties of reward‐ and error related ERPs in adolescents and adults, suggesting that the ERN and RewP may be appropriate biomarkers of individual differences in populations ranging from early childhood to adulthood.
Article
Accurate reward predictions include forecasting both what a reward will be and when a reward will occur. We tested how variations in the certainty of reward outcome and certainty in timing of feedback presentation modulate neural indices of reward prediction errors using the reward positivity (RewP) component of the scalp-recorded brain event-related potential (ERP). In a within-subjects design, seventy-three healthy individuals completed two versions of a cued doors task; one cued the probability of a reward outcome while the other cued the probability of a delay before feedback. Replicating previous results, RewP amplitude was larger for uncertain feedback compared to certain feedback. Additionally, RewP amplitude was differentially associated with uncertainty of presence/absence of reward, but not uncertainty of feedback timing. Findings suggest a dissociation in that RewP amplitude is modulated by reward prediction certainty but is less affected by certainty surrounding timing of feedback.
Article
The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) positive valence systems domain include multiple aspects of reward responsiveness with potential to elucidate the understanding of motivational and hedonic deficits in psychological disorders. There is a need for reliable and valid methods to delineate behavioral and biological processes underlying stages of reward responsiveness. Event‐related potentials (ERPs) offer a promising method for examining the temporal dynamics of reward processing, but the literature has mainly focused on the feedback stage and often single components. We investigated the electrophysiological aspects of reward anticipation and initial response to reward using an ERP monetary incentive delay task in 114 emerging adults. Principal component analysis was used to derive temporally and spatially distinct ERP components sensitive to reward processing. Components that reflect initial engagement toward a cue indicating potential reward (cue‐P3) and anticipation of possible reward feedback (stimulus‐preceding negativity; SPN) emerged in the anticipatory stage. In the initial response to reward stage, a reward positivity (RewP) was found. We further tested the association between ERPs and self‐reported facets of the behavioral activation system. Greater self‐reported reward responsiveness was associated with heightened response in the anticipatory stage (i.e., cue‐P3, SPN). Self‐reported drive was positively associated with RewP, but fun‐seeking was negatively associated with RewP. Additional components were observed beyond those identified in prior work, warranting future research on temporal dynamics of reward processing across stages. Furthermore, examination of a broader range of reward‐related ERPs in clinical populations has the potential to more precisely characterize alterations in positive valence systems in psychopathology.
Article
Background: Alterations in positive valence systems and social processes, including low reward responsiveness and high rejection sensitivity, have been observed in depression. Most reward research focuses on the monetary domain, but social reward responsiveness may be particularly relevant to understanding the etiology of depression, particularly in combination with other social processes. Pathways to depression are complex, and research testing interactions between multiple factors is needed. The present study examined the interactive effects of reward responsiveness and rejection sensitivity on depressive symptoms using both social and monetary reward electroencephalogram (EEG) tasks. Methods: Emerging adults (N = 120) completed peer interaction and monetary incentive delay tasks while EEG data were recorded, as well as self-report measures of rejection sensitivity and depressive symptoms. Results: The interaction between social reward responsiveness and self-reported rejection sensitivity was significantly associated with depressive symptoms, such that rejection sensitivity was associated with greater depressive symptoms for those with a relatively reduced response to social reward. The interaction between monetary reward responsiveness and rejection sensitivity was not significant. Limitations: The study was cross-sectional and used a non-clinical sample. Conclusions: Results suggest a possible pathway for depressive symptoms characterized by the combination of high rejection sensitivity and low social reward responsiveness. Findings highlight the need for consideration of multiple domains of reward responsiveness in clinical neuroscience research. With extension to longitudinal studies and clinical samples, the present findings may inform understanding of targets for intervention.
Article
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by heightened reward sensitivity which, in turn, confers risk for pertinent negative outcomes, underscoring the need to better understand biological bases and behavioral correlates of reward responsiveness during this developmental phase. Our goals in the current study were to examine, in a sample of 43 typically developing adolescents (Mage = 15.67 years; SD = 1.01; 32.6% boys), (1) evidence of convergent validity between neural and self‐report reward responsiveness, (2) associations between neural reward responsiveness and self‐report dispositional affectivity and emotion dysregulation (ED) and (3) evidence of incremental validity of self‐report beyond neural reward responsiveness in predicting affectivity and ED. During electroencephalography (EEG), adolescents completed two experimental paradigms probing event‐related potential (ERP) indices of reward anticipation and initial responsiveness to reward attainment. Following EEG, they completed self‐report measures of reward responsiveness, affectivity, and ED. Findings indicated some evidence of convergent validity between enhanced ERP indices of reward anticipation and initial response to reward and greater reinforcement sensitivity; that ERP indices of both reward responsiveness aspects predicted lower negative affectivity and less ED; and evidence of incremental validity of self‐report beyond neural reward responsiveness in predicting outcomes. Results underscore the utility of a multi‐method framework in assessing adolescent reward responsiveness and support the relevance of reward responsiveness in explaining individual differences in dispositional affectivity and ED.
Article
Individual differences in reward responsiveness can be reliably measured at the neurophysiological level using the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential (ERP). Alterations in reward responsiveness impact physical and psychological health. In particular, prior research indicates that a reduced RewP prospectively predicts depressive symptoms. However, it remains unclear whether RewP can be modified through intervention or prevention. The present study examined the effects of a brief motivation manipulation on behavioral, neural, and self-report indicators of reward responsiveness in an unselected sample of young adults (N = 98). Participants completed a monetary incentive delay task twice while ERPs to monetary reward and loss feedback were recorded. Before the first round, all participants were read standard instructions. For the second round, participants were randomized to either a motivation manipulation, in which the experimenter prompted the participant to focus on the positive outcomes of winning, or to a neutral condition. Participants completed a self-report questionnaire assessing motivation to win/not lose money following both rounds. Reaction time for incentive trials decreased, while RewP to wins and self-reported motivation increased, from the first to the second round only in the motivation group. These results provide the first evidence that a brief motivation manipulation can enhance multiple indicators of reward responsiveness, including RewP. Longitudinal research is needed to test whether effects persist across time and generalize to clinically depressed samples and those at high risk for depression.
Article
Full-text available
Objective: Adults and adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) show a blunted neural response to rewards. Depression has been validated in children as young as age 3; however, it remains unclear whether blunted response to reward is also a core feature of preschool-onset depression. If so, this would provide further validation for the continuity of the neural correlates of depression across the life span and would identify a potential target for treatment in young children. Method: Fifty-three 4- to 7-year-old children with depression and 25 psychiatrically healthy 4- to 7-year-old children completed a simple guessing task in which points could be won or lost on each trial while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Psychiatric diagnosis was established using a preschool version of the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Depression. Results: Young children with depression showed a reduced differentiation between response to gains and losses, and this finding was driven by a blunted response to reward (i.e., the reward positivity [RewP]). These findings held even when controlling for co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. The RewP did not vary as a function of depression severity within the group with depression. Conclusion: Similar to adults and adolescents with depression, preschoolers with depression display reductions in responsivity to rewards as indexed by the RewP. These findings provide further evidence for continuity in the neural mechanisms associated with depression across the lifespan, and point to altered reward sensitivity as an early-emerging potential target for intervention in preschool-onset depression. Clinical trial registration information-A Randomized Controlled Trial of PCIT-ED for Preschool Depression; http://clinicaltrials.gov/; NCT02076425.
Article
Full-text available
Trait impulsivity, which is often defined as a strong preference for immediate over delayed rewards and results in behaviors that are socially inappropriate, maladaptive, and short-sighted, is a predisposing vulnerability to all externalizing spectrum disorders. In contrast, anhedonia is characterized by chronically low motivation and reduced capacity to experience pleasure, and is common to depressive disorders. Although externalizing and depressive disorders have virtually nonoverlapping diagnostic criteria in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, heterotypic comorbidity between them is common. Here, we review common neural substrates of trait impulsivity, anhedonia, and irritability, which include both low tonic mesolimbic dopamine activity and low phasic mesolimbic dopamine responding to incentives during reward anticipation and associative learning. We also consider how other neural networks, including bottom-up emotion generation systems and top-down emotion regulation systems, interact with mesolimbic dysfunction to result in alternative manifestations of psychiatric illness. Finally, we present a model that emphasizes a translational, transdiagnostic approach to understanding externalizing/depression comorbidity. This model should refine ways in which internalizing and externalizing disorders are studied, classified, and treated.
Article
Full-text available
There is growing interest in psychophysiological and neural correlates of psychopathology, personality, and other individual differences. Many studies correlate a criterion individual difference variable (e.g., anxiety) with a psychophysiological measurement derived by subtracting scores taken from two within-subject conditions. These subtraction-based difference scores are intended to increase specificity by isolating variability of interest. Using data on the error-related negativity (ERN) and correct response negativity (CRN) in relation to generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), we highlight several conceptual and practical issues with subtraction-based difference scores and propose alternative approaches based on regression. We show that ERN and CRN are highly correlated, and that the ΔERN (i.e., ERN − CRN) is correlated in opposite directions both with ERN and CRN. Bivariate analyses indicate that GAD is related to ΔERN and ERN, but not CRN. We first show that, by using residualized scores, GAD relates both to a larger ERN and smaller CRN. Moreover, by probing the interaction of ERN and CRN, we show that the relationship between GAD and ERN varies by CRN. These latter findings are not evident when using traditional subtraction-based difference scores. We then completed follow-up analyses that suggested that an increased P300 in anxious individuals gave rise to the apparent anxiety/CRN relationship observed. These findings have important conceptual implications for facilitating the interpretability of results from individual difference studies of psychophysiology.
Article
Full-text available
According to the dual systems perspective, risk taking peaks during adolescence because activation of an early-maturing socioemotional-incentive processing system amplifies adolescents’ affinity for exciting, pleasurable, and novel activities at a time when a still immature cognitive control system is not yet strong enough to consistently restrain potentially hazardous impulses. We review evidence from both the psychological and neuroimaging literatures that has emerged since 2008, when this perspective was originally articulated. Although there are occasional exceptions to the general trends, studies show that, as predicted, psychological and neural manifestations of reward sensitivity increase between childhood and adolescence, peak sometime during the late teen years, and decline thereafter, whereas psychological and neural reflections of better cognitive control increase gradually and linearly throughout adolescence and into the early 20s. While some forms of real-world risky behavior peak at a later age than predicted, this likely reflects differential opportunities for risk-taking in late adolescence and young adulthood, rather than neurobiological differences that make this age group more reckless. Although it is admittedly an oversimplification, as a heuristic device, the dual systems model provides a far more accurate account of adolescent risk taking than prior models that have attributed adolescent recklessness to cognitive deficiencies.
Article
Full-text available
Depression appears to be characterized by reduced neural reactivity to receipt of reward. Despite evidence of shared etiologies and high rates of comorbidity between depression and anxiety, this abnormality may be relatively specific to depression. However, it is unclear whether children at risk for depression also exhibit abnormal reward responding, and if so, whether risk for anxiety moderates this association. The feedback negativity (FN) is an event-related potential component sensitive to receipt of rewards versus losses that is reduced in depression. Using a large community sample (N = 407) of 9-year-old children who had never experienced a depressive episode, we examined whether histories of depression and anxiety in their parents were associated with the FN following monetary rewards and losses. Results indicated that maternal history of depression was associated with a blunted FN in offspring, but only when there was no maternal history of anxiety. In addition, greater severity of maternal depression was associated with greater blunting of the FN in children. No effects of paternal psychopathology were observed. Results suggest that blunted reactivity to rewards versus losses may be a vulnerability marker that is specific to pure depression, but is not evident when there is also familial risk for anxiety. In addition, these findings suggest that abnormal reward responding is evident as early as middle childhood, several years prior to the sharp increase in the prevalence of depression and rapid changes in neural reward circuitry in adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Article
Full-text available
An event-related potential (ERP) component reliably associated with feedback processing and well studied in humans is the feedback-related negativity (FRN), which is assumed to indicate activation of midcingulate cortex (MCC) neurons. However, recent approaches have conceptualized this frontocentral ERP component as reflecting at least partially a reward positivity associated with activation in reward-related brain regions, in line with fMRI studies investigating feedback processing in the context of reward evaluation. To discover convergence of electrophysiological and BOLD responses elicited by performance feedback, we concurrently recorded EEG and fMRI during a time-estimation task. The ERP showed relatively more negative amplitudes to negative than to positive feedback. Conventional analyses of fMRI data revealed activation of a number of areas, including ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, and medial prefrontal cortex to positive versus negative feedback. Most importantly, when using single-trial amplitudes of electrophysiological feedback signals to estimate hemodynamic responses, we found feedback-related BOLD-responses in ventral striatum, midcingulate, and midfrontal cortices to positive but not to negative feedback associated with feedback signals in the time range of the FRN. Specifically, activation in these areas increased as amplitudes became more positive. These findings suggest that, in the time-estimation task, a positivity elicited by reward is associated with brain activation in several reward-related brain regions and is driving differential ERP responses in the time range of the FRN.
Article
Full-text available
The reliability, stability, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of event-related potentials (ERPs) were investigated in children, adolescents, younger adults, and older adults in performance monitoring tasks. P2, N2, P3, and P2-N2 peak-to-peak amplitude showed high odd-even split reliabilities in all age groups, ranging from.70 to.90. Multigroup analyses showed that test-retest stabilities (across 2 weeks) of ERP amplitudes did not differ among the four age groups. In contrast, relative to adolescents and younger adults, SNRs were lower in children and older adults, with higher noise levels in children and lower signal power in older adults. We conclude that age differences in the SNR of stimulus-locked ERPs can be successfully compensated by the averaging procedure with about 40 trials in the average. However, age differences in baseline noise and split-half reliability should be considered when comparing age groups in single trial measures or time-varying processes with ERPs.
Article
Full-text available
In the context of the development of prototypic assessment instruments in the areas of cognition, personality, and adaptive functioning, the issues of standardization, norming procedures, and the important psychometrics of test reliability and validity are evaluated critically. Criteria, guidelines, and simple rules of thumb are provided to assist the clinician faced with the challenge of choosing an appropriate test instrument for a given psychological assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Full-text available
Event-related potential studies of reward processing have consistently identified the feedback negativity (FN), an early neural response that differentiates feedback indicating unfavorable versus favorable outcomes. Several important questions remain, however, about the nature of this response. In this study, the FN was recorded in response to monetary gains and losses during a laboratory gambling task, and temporospatial principal components analysis was used to separate the FN from overlapping responses. The FN was identified as a positive deflection at frontocentral recording sites that was enhanced for rewards compared with nonrewards. Furthermore, source localization techniques identified the striatum as a likely neural generator. These data indicate that this apparent FN reflects increased striatal activation in response to favorable outcomes that is reduced or absent for unfavorable outcomes, thereby providing unique information about the timing and nature of basal ganglia activity related to reward processing.
Article
Full-text available
Researchers and clinicians have long hypothesized that there are temperamental vulnerabilities to depressive disorders. Despite the fact that individual differences in temperament should be evident in early childhood, most studies have focused on older youth and adults. We hypothesized that if early childhood temperament is a risk factor for depressive disorders, it should be associated with better established risk markers, such parental depression. Hence, we examined the associations of laboratory-assessed positive emotionality (PE), negative emotionality (NE), and behavioral inhibition (BI) with semistructured interview-based diagnoses of parental depressive disorders in a community sample of 536 3-year old children. Children with higher levels of NE and BI had higher probabilities of having a depressed parent. However, both main effects were qualified by interactions with child PE. At high and moderate (but not low) levels of child PE, greater NE and BI were associated with higher rates of parental depression. Conversely, at low (but not high and moderate) levels of child NE, low PE was associated with higher rates of parental depression. Child temperament was not associated with parental anxiety and substance use disorders. These findings indicate that laboratory-assessed temperament in young children is associated with parental depressive disorders; however, the relations are complex, and it is important to consider interactions between temperament dimensions rather than focusing exclusively on main effects.
Article
Full-text available
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by increased reward-seeking behavior. Investigators have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in conjunction with reward paradigms to test two opposing hypotheses about adolescent developmental changes in the striatum, a region implicated in reward processing. One hypothesis posits that the striatum is relatively hypo-responsive to rewards during adolescence, such that heightened reward-seeking behavior is necessary to achieve the same activation as adults. Another view suggests that during adolescence the striatal reward system is hyper-responsive, which subsequently results in greater reward-seeking. While evidence for both hypotheses has been reported, the field has generally converged on this latter hypothesis based on compelling evidence. In this review, I describe the evidence to support this notion, speculate on the disparate fMRI findings and conclude with future areas of inquiry to this fascinating question.
Article
Full-text available
A variety of neuroimaging tools are now available for use in studying neurodevelopment. In this article, we focus our attention on one such tool--the event-related potential (ERP). We begin by providing an overview of what ERPs are, their physiological basis, how they are recorded, and some constraints on their use. We then provide an abbreviated glossary of ERP components, that is, what processes are reflected in ERPs. We conclude by summarizing two areas of atypical development that have benefited from this method: children experiencing early psychosocial neglect, and children diagnosed with autism. We conclude by offering recommendations for future research.
Article
Full-text available
Independent components analysis (ICA) and principal components analysis (PCA) are methods used to analyze event-related potential (ERP) and functional imaging (fMRI) data. In the present study, ICA and PCA were directly compared by applying them to simulated ERP datasets. Specifically, PCA was used to generate a subspace of the dataset followed by the application of PCA Promax or ICA Infomax rotations. The simulated datasets were composed of real background EEG activity plus two ERP simulated components. The results suggest that Promax is most effective for temporal analysis, whereas Infomax is most effective for spatial analysis. Failed analyses were examined and used to devise potential diagnostic strategies for both rotations. Finally, the results also showed that decomposition of subject averages yield better results than of grand averages across subjects.
Article
The ability to differentiate between rewards and losses is critical for motivated action, and aberrant reward and loss processing has been associated with psychopathology. The reward positivity (RewP) and feedback negativity (FN) are ERPs elicited by monetary gains and losses, respectively, and are promising individual difference measures. However, few studies have reported on the psychometric properties of the RewP and FN-crucial characteristics necessary for valid individual difference measures. The current study examined the internal consistency and 1-week test-retest reliability of the RewP and FN as elicited by the doors task among 59 young adults. The RewP, FN, and their difference score (ΔRewP) all showed significant correlations between Time 1 and Time 2. The RewP and FN also achieved acceptable internal consistency at both time points within 20 trials using both Cronbach's α and a generalizability theory-derived dependability measure. Internal consistency for ΔRewP was notably weaker at both time points, which is expected from two highly intercorrelated constituent scores. In conclusion, the RewP and FN have strong psychometric properties in a healthy adult sample. Future research is needed to assess the psychometric properties of these ERPs in different age cohorts and in clinical populations.
Article
Vulnerability models of depression posit that individual differences in trait-like vulnerabilities emerge early in life and increase risk for the later development of depression. In this review, we summarize advances from affective neuroscience using neural measures to assess vulnerabilities in youth at high risk for depression due to parental history of depression or temperament style, as well as prospective designs evaluating the predictive validity of these vulnerabilities for symptoms and diagnoses of depression across development. Evidence from multiple levels of analysis indicates that healthy youth at high risk for depression exhibit abnormalities in components of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) positive valence systems, including blunted activation in the striatum during reward anticipation and feedback, and that some of these measures can be used to predict later symptoms. In addition, alterations in components of RDoC’s negative valence systems, including neural processing of sadness, loss, and threat, have been observed in risk for depression, though effects appear to be more task and method dependent. Within the social processes domain, preliminary evidence indicates that neural processing of social feedback, including heightened reactivity to exclusion and blunted response to social reward, may be related to depression vulnerability. These studies indicate that affective neuroscience can inform understanding of developmental pathways to depression and identify altered emotional processing among youth at high risk. We provide an integrated summary of consistent findings from this literature, along with recommendations for future directions and implications for early intervention.
Article
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a fundamental procedure for event-related potential (ERP) research and yet there is very little guidance for best practices. It is important for the field to develop evidence-based best practices: 1) to minimize the Type II error rate by maximizing statistical power, 2) to minimize the Type I error rate by reducing the latitude for varying procedures, and 3) to identify areas for further methodological improvements. While generic treatments of ANOVA methodology are available, ERP datasets have many unique characteristics that must be considered. In the present report, a novelty oddball dataset was utilized as a test case to determine whether three aspects of ANOVA procedures as applied to ERPs make a real-world difference: the effects of reference site, regional channels, and robust ANOVAs. Recommendations are provided for best practices in each of these areas.
Article
Objective: A blunted neural response to rewards has recently emerged as a potential mechanistic biomarker of adolescent depression. The reward positivity, an event-related potential elicited by feedback indicating monetary gain relative to loss, has been associated with risk for depression. The authors examined whether the reward positivity prospectively predicted the development of depression 18 months later in a large community sample of adolescent girls. Method: The sample included 444 girls 13.5-15.5 years old with no lifetime history of a depressive disorder, along with a biological parent for each girl. At baseline, the adolescents' reward positivity was measured using a monetary guessing task, their current depressive symptoms were assessed using a self-report questionnaire, and the adolescents' and parents' lifetime psychiatric histories were evaluated with diagnostic interviews. The same interview and questionnaire were administered to the adolescents again approximately 18 months later. Results: A blunted reward positivity at baseline predicted first-onset depressive disorder and greater depressive symptom scores 18 months later. The reward positivity was also a significant predictor independent of other prominent risk factors, including baseline depressive symptoms and adolescent and parental lifetime psychiatric history. The combination of a blunted reward positivity and greater depressive symptom scores at baseline provided the greatest positive predictive value for first-onset depressive disorder. Conclusions: This study provides strong converging evidence that a blunted neural response to rewards precedes adolescent-onset depression and symptom emergence. Blunted neural response may therefore constitute an important target for screening and prevention.
Article
Feedback negativity (FN) is an event-related potential elicited by monetary reward and loss; it is thought to relate to reward-related neural activity and has been linked to depression in children and adults. In the current study, we examined the stability of FN, and its relationship with depression in adolescents, over 2 years in 45 8- to 13-year-old children. From Time 1 to Time 2, FN in response to monetary loss and in response to monetary gain showed moderate to strong reliability (rs = .64 and .67, respectively); these relationships remained significant even when accounting for related variables. FN also demonstrated high within-session reliability. Moreover, the relationship between a blunted FN and greater depression observed at Time 1 was reproduced at Time 2, and the magnitude of FN at Time 1 predicted depressive symptomatology at Time 2. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that FN and its relationship with depression remain consistent over the course of development, and that FN may prospectively predict later depressive symptomatology. The current results suggest that FN may be suitable as a biomarker of depressive symptoms during adolescence.
Article
Reward reactivity and positive emotion are key components of a theoretical, early-emerging approach motivational system, yet few studies have examined associations between positive emotion and neural reactivity to reward across development. In this multi-method prospective study, we examined the association of laboratory observations of positive emotionality (PE) at age 3 and self-reported positive affect (PA) at age 9 with an event-related potential component sensitive to the relative response to winning vs. losing money, the feedback negativity (ΔFN), at age 9 (N=381). Males had a larger ΔFN than females, and both greater observed PE at age 3 and self-reported PA at age 9 significantly, but modestly, predicted an enhanced ΔFN at age 9. Negative emotionality and behavioral inhibition did not predict ΔFN. Results contribute to understanding the neural correlates of PE and suggest that the FN and PE may be related to the same biobehavioral approach system. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Article
Feedback indicating monetary loss elicits an apparent negative deflection in the event-related potential (ERP) that has been referred to as the feedback error-related negativity, medial frontal negativity, feedback-related negativity, and feedback negativity-all conceptualizations that suggest a negative ERP component that is greater for loss than gain. In the current paper, I review a programmatic line of research indicating that this apparent negativity actually reflects a reward-related positivity (RewP) that is absent or suppressed following nonreward. I situate the RewP within a broader nomological network of reward processing and individual differences in sensitivity to rewards. Further, I review work linking reductions in the RewP to increased depressive symptoms and risk for depression. Finally, I discuss future directions for research on the RewP.
Article
Rewards are integral to learning associations that aid in survival. The feedback negativity (FN), an event-related potential that differentiates outcomes indicating monetary losses versus gains, has recently emerged as a possible neural measure of reward processing. If this view is correct, then the FN should correlate with measures of reward sensitivity in other domains, although few studies have investigated this question. In the current study, 46 participants completed a self-report measure of reward responsiveness, a signal detection task that generated a behavioral measure of reward sensitivity, and a gambling task that elicited an FN. Consistent with the view that the FN reflects reward-related neural activity, a larger FN correlated with increased behavioral and self-report measures of sensitivity to reward.
Article
The prevalence of depression increases substantially during adolescence. Several predictors of major depressive disorder have been established, but their predictive power is limited. In the current study, the feedback negativity (FN), an event-related potential component elicited by feedback indicating monetary gain versus loss, was recorded in 68 never-depressed adolescent girls. Over the following 2 years, 24% of participants developed a major depressive episode (MDE); illness onset was predicted by blunted FN at initial evaluation. Lower FN amplitude predicted more depressive symptoms during the follow-up period, even after controlling for neuroticism and depressive symptoms at baseline. This is the first prospective study to demonstrate a link between a neural measure of reward sensitivity and the first onset of an MDE. The current results suggest that low reward sensitivity may be an important factor in the development of depression.
Article
Standard least squares analysis of variance methods suffer from poor power under arbitrarily small departures from normality and fail to control the probability of a Type I error when standard assumptions are violated. These problems are vastly reduced when using a robust measure of location; incorporating bootstrap methods can result in additional benefits. This paper illustrates the use of trimmed means with an approximate degrees of freedom heteroskedastic statistic for independent and correlated groups designs in order to achieve robustness to the biasing effects of nonnormality and variance heterogeneity. As well, we indicate when a boostrap methodology can be effectively employed to provide improved Type I error control. We also illustrate, with examples from the psychophysiological literature, the use of a new computer program to obtain numerical results for these solutions.
Article
Principal components analysis (PCA) has attracted increasing interest as a tool for facilitating analysis of high-density event-related potential (ERP) data. While every researcher is exposed to this statistical procedure in graduate school, its complexities are rarely covered in depth and hence researchers are often not conversant with its subtleties. Furthermore, application to ERP datasets involves unique aspects that would not be covered in a general statistics course. This tutorial seeks to provide guidance on the decisions involved in applying PCA to ERPs and their consequences, using the ERP PCA Toolkit to illustrate the analysis process on a novelty oddball dataset.
Article
Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer unparalleled temporal sensitivity in tracing the distinct electrocortical processing stages enabling cognition and are frequently utilized in clinical and experimental investigations, yet few studies have investigated their retest reliability. We administered a battery of typical ERP paradigms to elicit a diverse range of components linked to distinct perceptual and cognitive processes (P1, N1, N170, P3a, P3b, error-related negativity, error positivity, P400). Twenty-five participants completed the battery on two occasions, 1 month apart. Analysis of component amplitudes indicated moderate-to-strong split-half and strong test-retest reliability. Peak latency reliability varied substantially across components and ranged from weak to strong. We confirm that a range of prominent ERPs provide highly stable neurophysiological indices of human cognitive function.
Article
To better understand the reward circuitry in human brain, we conducted activation likelihood estimation (ALE) and parametric voxel-based meta-analyses (PVM) on 142 neuroimaging studies that examined brain activation in reward-related tasks in healthy adults. We observed several core brain areas that participated in reward-related decision making, including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), caudate, putamen, thalamus, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), bilateral anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), as well as cognitive control regions in the inferior parietal lobule and prefrontal cortex (PFC). The NAcc was commonly activated by both positive and negative rewards across various stages of reward processing (e.g., anticipation, outcome, and evaluation). In addition, the medial OFC and PCC preferentially responded to positive rewards, whereas the ACC, bilateral anterior insula, and lateral PFC selectively responded to negative rewards. Reward anticipation activated the ACC, bilateral anterior insula, and brain stem, whereas reward outcome more significantly activated the NAcc, medial OFC, and amygdala. Neurobiological theories of reward-related decision making should therefore take distributed and interrelated representations of reward valuation and valence assessment into account.
Article
This article presents an open source Matlab program, the ERP PCA (EP) Toolkit, for facilitating the multivariate decomposition and analysis of event-related potential data. This program is intended to supplement existing ERP analysis programs by providing functions for conducting artifact correction, robust averaging, referencing and baseline correction, data editing and visualization, principal components analysis, and robust inferential statistical analysis. This program subserves three major goals: (1) optimizing analysis of noisy data, such as clinical or developmental; (2) facilitating the multivariate decomposition of ERP data into its constituent components; (3) increasing the transparency of analysis operations by providing direct visualization of the corresponding waveforms.
Article
The error-related negativity (ERN) and feedback-related negativity (FRN) have been used as electrophysiological indices of performance monitoring produced in response to internally generated (errors) and externally generated (feedback) activations of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). No studies to date have systematically examined the measurement reliability of these components. In this article, we present the retest reliability of the ERN and FRN during response tasks designed to elicit errors or feedback responses on two occasions. Data from four experiments are presented in which participants performed tasks over various periods of time. Results indicate good retest reliability of the ERN and FRN amplitudes and source generation of these components. The present article provides important validation of the ERN and FRN as stable and trait-like electrophysiological reflections of performance monitoring and ACC functional integrity.
Article
Principal components analysis (PCA) can facilitate analysis of event-related potential (ERP) components. Geomin, Oblimin, Varimax, Promax, and Infomax (independent components analysis) were compared using a simulated data set. Kappa settings for Oblimin and Promax were also systematically compared. Finally, the rotations were also analyzed in a two-step PCA procedure, including a contrast between spatiotemporal and temporospatial procedures. Promax was found to give the best overall results for temporal PCA, and Infomax was found to give the best overall results for spatial PCA. The current practice of kappa values of 3 or 4 for Promax and 0 for Oblimin was supported. Source analysis was meaningfully improved by temporal Promax PCA over the conventional windowed difference wave approach (from a median 32.9 mm error to 6.7 mm). It was also found that temporospatial PCA produced modestly improved results over spatiotemporal PCA.
Article
Self-regulation is a complex process that involves consumers’ persistence, strength, motivation, and commitment in order to be able to override short-term impulses. In order to be able to pursue their long-term goals, consumers typically need to forgo immediate pleasurable experiences that are detrimental to reach their overarching goals. Although this sometimes involves resisting to simple and small temptations, it is not always easy, since the lure of momentary temptations is pervasive. In addition, consumers’ beliefs play an important role determining strategies and behaviors that consumers consider acceptable to engage in, affecting how they act and plan actions to attain their goals. This dissertation investigates adequacy of some beliefs typically shared by consumers about the appropriate behaviors to exert self-regulation, analyzing to what extent these indeed contribute to the enhancement of consumers’ ability to exert self-regulation.
Article