Pupil Dilation during Reward Anticipation Is Correlated to Depressive Symptom Load in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

Depression is a debilitating disorder with high prevalence and socioeconomic cost, but the brain-physiological processes that are altered during depressive states are not well understood. Here, we build on recent findings in macaques that indicate a direct causal relationship between pupil dilation and anterior cingulate cortex mediated arousal during anticipation of reward. We translated these findings to human subjects with concomitant pupillometry/fMRI in a sample of unmedicated participants diagnosed with major depression and healthy controls. We could show that the upregulation and maintenance of arousal in anticipation of reward was disrupted in patients in a symptom-load dependent manner. We could further show that the failure to maintain reward anticipatory arousal showed state-marker properties, as it tracked the load and impact of depressive symptoms independent of prior diagnosis status. Further, group differences of anticipatory arousal and continuous correlations with symptom load were not traceable only at the level of pupillometric responses, but were mirrored also at the neural level within salience network hubs. The upregulation and maintenance of arousal during reward anticipation is a novel translational and well-traceable process that could prove a promising gateway to a physiologically informed patient stratification and targeted interventions. View Full-Text

Keywords: depression; arousal; reward; pupillometry; fMRI

▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Supplementary Material

Supplementary File 1:
PDF-Document (PDF, 1211 KiB)

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Schneider, M.; Elbau, I.G.; Nantawisarakul, T.; Pöhlchen, D.; Brückl, T.; BeCOME Working Group; Czisch, M.; Saemann, P.G.; Lee, M.D.; Binder, E.B.; Spoormaker, V.I. Pupil Dilation during Reward Anticipation Is Correlated to Depressive Symptom Load in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder. Brain Sci. 2020, 10, 906. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10120906

AMA Style

Schneider M, Elbau IG, Nantawisarakul T, Pöhlchen D, Brückl T, BeCOME Working Group, Czisch M, Saemann PG, Lee MD, Binder EB, Spoormaker VI. Pupil Dilation during Reward Anticipation Is Correlated to Depressive Symptom Load in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder. Brain Sciences. 2020; 10(12):906. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10120906

Chicago/Turabian Style

Schneider, Max, Immanuel G. Elbau, Teachawidd Nantawisarakul, Dorothee Pöhlchen, Tanja Brückl, BeCOME Working Group, Michael Czisch, Philipp G. Saemann, Michael D. Lee, Elisabeth B. Binder, and Victor I. Spoormaker. 2020. "Pupil Dilation during Reward Anticipation Is Correlated to Depressive Symptom Load in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder" Brain Sciences 10, no. 12: 906. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10120906

Find Other Styles

Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Abstract views Pdf views Html views

Article Menu

Pupil Dilation during Reward Anticipation Is Correlated to Depressive Symptom Load in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

Abstract

Supplementary Material

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI