Blunted cardiovascular reactivity in dysphoria during reward and punishment anticipation

As expected, reactivity of cardiac pre-ejection period and heart rate was higher in both incentive conditions compared to the neutral condition for nondysphorics, while it was blunted across conditions for dysphorics. Moreover, the present study found that dysphorics show an altered behavioral response to punishment. These findings thus show that dysphorics present a reduced motivation to obtain a reward or to avoid a punishment in terms of reduced effort-related cardiac reactivity.