Research paperNeural reactivity to reward and internalizing symptom dimensions

•We examined the relation between the RewP and internalizing symptom dimensions.•A PCA on clinical measures revealed two distinct factors characterizing the sample.•An attenuated RewP was associated with greater distress/misery symptoms (Factor 1).•Results revealed no relation between the RewP and fear-based anxiety (Factor 2).

BackgroundReduced reward responsiveness, measured via the event-related potential (ERP) component the reward positivity (RewP), has been linked to several internalizing psychopathologies (IPs). Specifically, prior studies suggest that a reduced RewP is robustly related to depression and to a lesser extent anxiety. No studies to date, however, have examined the relation between the RewP and IP symptom dimensions in a heterogeneous, clinically representative patient population that includes both depressed and/or anxious subjects. The primary aim of the current study was to examine the relation between the RewP and specific internalizing symptom dimensions among patients with a variety of IP diagnoses and symptoms.MethodsA total of 80 treatment seeking adults from the community completed a battery of questionnaires assessing a range of IP symptoms and a well-validated reward processing task known to robustly elicit the RewP.ResultsA principal components analysis (PCA) on clinical assessments revealed two distinct factors that characterized the patient sample: affective distress/misery and fear-based anxiety. Results showed that within this sample, an attenuated RewP was associated with greater affective distress/misery based symptoms; however, the RewP was unrelated to fear-based anxiety symptoms.ConclusionsThe current findings suggest that patients with higher distress/misery symptoms are characterized by decreased responsivity to rewards at the physiological level, and that this response tendency distinguishes distress/misery symptoms from fear-based symptoms. The RewP may be one promising transdiagnostic biological target for intervention efforts for individuals with distress-based symptoms of psychopathology.