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Cited by 571Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesTreatment of Major DepressionNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

Assessing anhedonia in depression: potentials and pitfalls

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Rizvi, Sakina J., Pizzagalli, Diego A., Sproule, Beth A., Kennedy, Sidney H.·2016·Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
DOI 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.03.004PMC PMC4856554
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Abstract

The resurgence of interest in anhedonia within major depression has been fuelled by clinical trials demonstrating its utility in predicting antidepressant response as well as recent conceptualizations focused on the role and manifestation of anhedonia in depression. Historically, anhedonia has been understood as a "loss of pleasure", yet neuropsychological and neurobiological studies reveal a multifaceted reconceptualization that emphasizes different facets of hedonic function, including desire, effort/motivation, anticipation and consummatory pleasure. To ensure generalizability across studies, evaluation of the available subjective and objective methods to assess anhedonia is necessary. The majority of research regarding anhedonia and its neurobiological underpinnings comes from preclinical research, which uses primary reward (e.g. food) to probe hedonic responding. In contrast, behavioural studies in humans primarily use secondary reward (e.g. money) to measure many aspects of reward responding, including delay discounting, response bias, prediction error, probabilistic reversal learning, effort, anticipation and consummatory pleasure. The development of subjective scales to measure anhedonia has also increased in the last decade. This review will assess the current methodology to measure anhedonia, with a focus on scales and behavioural tasks in humans. Limitations of current work and recommendations for future studies are discussed.

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  • Anhedonia naturally leads to a decrease in interest and motivation for social activity.

    “Ангедония закономерно приводит к снижению интереса и мотивации к социальной активности (Rizvi et al., 2016).”

    From Когнитивные механизмы дисфункционального принятия решений при психических расстройствах (2025) · cites this paper as Rizvi et al., 2016

    The Clinical methods section (page not provided) says an anhedonic person may lack the drive to pursue social relationships, supporting reduced motivation for social activity. But it also says that person may still consider those relationships important; it does not establish that anhedonia necessarily causes a loss of both interest and motivation. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Patients lose the ability to experience pleasure from activities that previously brought them joy (reading, hobbies, watching movies), sensory sensations, any consumption in the broad sense, as well as from communication with people.

    “Пациенты утрачивают способность испытывать удовольствие от занятий, прежде приносивших им радость (чтение, хобби, просмотр кинофильмов), сенсорных ощущений, любого потребления в широком смысле слова, а также от общения с людьми.”

    From Когнитивные механизмы дисфункционального принятия решений при психических расстройствах (2025) · cites this paper as Rizvi et al., 2016

    In “Conceptualizing anhedonia” (page unavailable), the review describes anhedonia as a loss of pleasure. Its “First generation” questionnaire section (page unavailable) identifies pastimes, social interaction, food and drink, and sensory experience as domains used to assess it. Those domains support much of the paraphrase, but the review does not establish that patients lose pleasure from *any* form of consumption or that all patients lose this ability. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • In this reward circuit, information about reward cues, reward value, and required effort is processed and integrated to guide decision-making, motivation, action readiness, and pleasure.

    “It is in this circuit that information about reward cues, reward value, and required effort is processed, communicated, and then integrated to guide decision-making, facilitate motivation and readiness for action, and eventually result in the experience of pleasure (Rizvi et al., 2016) (Figure 2).”

    From The effects of early life stress on reward processing (2018) · cites this paper as Rizvi et al., 2016

  • The ventral capsule/ventral striatum is a central hub in the reward circuitry with dopaminergic inputs from the ventral tegmental area, and serving as a relay between prefrontal cortex (OFC, vmPFC, ACC), ventral striatum and the amygdala and hippocampus.

    “The VC/VS is a central hub in the reward circuitry with dopaminergic inputs from the ventral tegmental area (VTA), and serving as a relay between prefrontal cortex (OFC, vmPFC, ACC), ventral striatum and the amygdala and hippocampus [55,56] (Fig. 4).”

    From Deep brain stimulation for depression. (2022) · cites this paper as [56]

  • Reward processing is a multi-step process including stimulus-reward association, interest/desire/anticipation, cost-benefit calculation, action planning, behavioral expenditure, consummatory pleasure, and feedback learning.

    “reward processing is a multi-step process starting with the establishment of an association between a given stimulus and a connected reward, which is then followed by the development of interest, desire, and anticipation defined as “state of readiness for a reward””

    From Circuit Mechanisms of Reward, Anhedonia, and Depression (2019) · cites this paper as Rizvi et al., 2016

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Authors
Rizvi, S. J., Pizzagalli, D. A., Sproule, B. A., & Kennedy, S. H.
Affiliations
  • St. Michael's Hospital (CA)
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CA)
Corresponding author
Rizvi, Sakina J.
ORCID
Venue
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2016-06
Volume
65
Pages
21-35
ISSN
0149-7634 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.03.004
PMC
PMC4856554
OpenAlex
W2293194104
Cited by
571
References
150
Citations by year
2026: 53 · 2025: 104 · 2024: 69 · 2023: 58 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 62 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 59 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1
FWCI
5.07
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH101521, R01MH095809, R01MH068376)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Keywords
anhedonia, major depressive disorder, reward processing, delay discounting, response bias, prediction error, probabilistic reversal learning, anticipation, consummatory pleasure, desire, antidepressant response prediction
MeSH terms
Depression, Humans, Motivation, Reward, Anhedonia

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