Greater Cumulative Lifetime Stressor Exposure Predicts Blunted Reward Positivity in Adolescent Girls Followed for 2 Years

Relations Between Neighborhood Disadvantage and Electrocortical Reward Processing in Youth at High and Low Risk for Depression

Neighborhood-level disadvantage during childhood is a determinant of health that is hypothesized to confer risk for psychopathology via alterations in neuro-affective processing, including reward responsiveness. However, little research has examined the impact of socioeconomic disadvantage assessed at the community-level on reward processing, which may have important implications for targeted dissemination efforts. Furthermore, not all youth exposed to neighborhood disadvantage may exhibit alterations in reward reactivity, highlighting the need to consider factors that may exacerbate risk for blunted reward reactivity. The current study examined associations between geocoded indices of neighborhood disadvantage and electrocortical reward responsivity in youth and tested whether findings were moderated by maternal history of depression. The sample included 137 youth recruited for studies on the intergenerational transmission of depression. Neighborhood disadvantage was assessed using the Area Deprivation Index (ADI) while the reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential, indexed reward response. Results revealed a significant interaction between ADI and maternal history of depression on youth RewP, such that greater neighborhood disadvantage was significantly associated with lower reward responsiveness, but only for youth with a maternal history of depression. Results were maintained controlling for youth internalizing symptoms and individual-level socioeconomic factors. Findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage may impact youth neural reward processing, at least partially independently of individual risk factors, for youth with a maternal history of depression. If replicated, results suggest intervention efforts may be implemented at the community level to enhance reward responsiveness, specifically for youth living in low-resourced neighborhoods with a maternal history of depression.

The effects of stress on reward responsiveness: a systematic review and preliminary meta-analysis of the event-related potential literature

Exposure to stressful events is associated with a range of negative physical and mental health outcomes, including depression. It is critical to understand the mechanisms through which stress impacts mental health to identify promising targets for prevention and intervention efforts. Low-reward responsiveness is thought to be a mechanism of effects of stress on negative health outcomes and can be reliably measured at the neurophysiological level by using event-related potentials (ERPs), such as the reward positivity (RewP) component. The goal of this systematic review and preliminary meta-analysis was to examine evidence of associations between stress and alterations in reward responsiveness measured using ERPs. Through a systematic review of the literature, 23 studies examining the effects of laboratory-induced stressors and naturalistic stressors or perceived stress on reward responsiveness met study criteria, 13 of which were included in the meta-analysis. Most studies were conducted in undergraduate and community samples, with three selected for specific conditions, and primarily in adults. The systematic review supported evidence of associations between laboratory-induced stressors and blunted reward responsiveness as measured by the RewP but there were more mixed results when considering direct associations between naturalistic stressors/perceived stress and reward-related ERPs. Given that all studies examined the RewP, the meta-analysis focused on this component and indicated that there was a weak, nonsignificant negative association between stress and RewP. Results emphasize the complex nature of relations between stress and reward-related ERPs and the need to consider alternative models in future research. We also provide reporting recommendations for ERP researchers to facilitate future meta-analyses.

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Neural Responses to Reward: A Quasi-experiment

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 2 groups of young adult participants, who completed a monetary reward task while an electroencephalogram was recorded, at 2 time points, 1 to 3 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 time points 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.

CONCLUSIONS

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.

Drinking alcohol by mid-adolescence is related to reduced reward reactivity: Novel evidence of positive valence system alterations in early initiating female youth

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.

Self-regulation and Tolerance for Uncertainty as Resources for the Subjective Well-being of Modern Youth: A Cross-cultural Aspect

The study of the socio-cultural specifics of subjective well-being, its determinants and resources are an important task of modern psychology. The authors present the results of an empirical study, the purpose of which is to identify the features of the relationship between conscious self-regulation and tolerance for uncertainty and subjective well-being in young people of different ethnic groups. The study involved 1435 respondents aged 18-35 from five regions of Russia (Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Republic of North Ossetia - Alania, Stavropol Territory, Moscow and the Moscow Region), belonging to the dominant ethnic groups in them. The design of the empirical study included an assessment of differences in indicators of subjective well-being, tolerance or intolerance for uncertainty and conscious self-regulation among various representatives of ethnocultural groups, as well as an analysis of the relationship between these indicators, in particular, using structural modeling. The results obtained confirm the influence of the cultural context of income on the level of subjective well-being. Less prosperous, as they consider themselves, are young people from ethnic groups where the socio-economic situation of the region does not provide opportunities for self-realization of the individual. The study has revealed two types of regulatory profiles: (1) a profile with a harmonious structure with a relatively pronounced general level of self-regulation, which is observed among the Russian respondents from Moscow and the Moscow region; and (2) a relatively accentuated profile, characteristic of Karachays, Circassians, Ossetians, and Russians (from the Stavropol Territory), expressed in the desire for a clear programming of their actions, their compliance with certain norms. It has been established that young people from the southern republics are less tolerant of uncertainty: they tend to solve problems in a situation of uncertainty in a ‘ready-made’ algorithm determined by traditions. Finally, the authors reveal the structure of relationships between the predictors of subjective well-being, which are presented in the form of models. The central place in these models belongs to conscious self-regulation and its basic cognitive-regulatory processes and personal-regulatory properties, which, both directly and indirectly, due to the mediator role of tolerance or intolerance for uncertainty, affect the subjective well-being of young people. The results of the study contribute to a deeper understanding of the ethno-regional specificity of the predictors of the subjective well-being of today’s youth and can serve as a basis for assisting in constructing interaction with representatives of other cultures and developing strategies for actively overcoming difficulties in a situation of uncertainty.