The Relationship Between Depression Symptoms and Adolescent Neural Response During Reward Anticipation and Outcome Depends on Developmental Timing: Evidence From a Longitudinal Study

Background: Blunted neural reward responsiveness (RR) is observed in youth depression. However, it is unclear whether symptoms of depression experienced early in development relate to adolescent RR beyond current symptoms and, further, whether such relationships with RR differ during two key components of reward processing: anticipation and outcome. Methods: Within a prospective longitudinal study oversampled for early depression, children and caregivers completed semiannual diagnostic assessments beginning in preschool. In later adolescence, mean age = 16.49 years (SD = 0.94), youths’ (N = 100) neurophysiological responses to cues signaling likely win and loss and these outcomes were assessed. Longitudinally assessed dimensional depression and externalizing symptoms (often comorbid with depression as well as associated with RR) experienced at different developmental periods (preschool [age 3–5.11 years], school age [6–9.11 years], early adolescence [10–14.11 years], current) were used as simultaneous predictors of event-related potentials indexing anticipatory cue processing (cue-P3) and outcome processing (reward positivity/feedback negativity and feedback-P3). Results: Blunted motivated attention to cues signaling likely win (cue-P3) was specifically predicted by early-adolescent depression symptoms. Blunted initial response to win (reward positivity) and loss (feedback negativity) outcomes was specifically predicted by preschool depression symptoms. Blunted motivational salience of win and loss outcomes (feedback-P3) was predicted by cumulative depression, not specific to any developmental stage. Conclusions: Although blunted anticipation and outcome RR is a common finding in depression, specific deficits related to motivated attention to cues and initial outcome processing may map onto the developmental course of these symptoms.