The assessment of interpersonal pleasure: Introduction of the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale (ACIPS) and preliminary findings

Although several valid measures of pleasure and anhedonia exist, there is a relative paucity of measures that adequately assess pleasure for social interactions. The Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale (ACIPS) is a measure specifically designed to assess hedonic capacity for social and interpersonal pleasure. Various aspects of the validity and reliability of the ACIPS were examined in several ways. First, we assessed the factor structure as well as the internal consistency, convergent, and discriminant validity of the ACIPS in 496 young adults recruited from undergraduate classes. Second, we investigated the temporal stability of the measure by having a subset of the group return for retesting. Results from the factor analysis suggested a three-factor model. The ACIPS was found to be highly reliable in terms of internal consistency and test–retest stability. Further, the ACIPS correlated in a theoretically meaningful way with other measures of pleasure and affect. The current research indicates that the ACIPS is a reliable and valid questionnaire to assess hedonic capacity for social and interpersonal pleasure in nonclinical samples. Suggestions for further clinical and research applications using the ACIPS are offered.     

Vulnerability to stressor-induced disturbances in self-stimulation from the dorsal and ventral A10 area: Differential effects of intraventricular D-Ala-Met-enkephalinamide, D-Ala, N-Me-Phe, Gly-Ol-enkephalin, and D-Pen, D-Pen- enkephalin administration

D-Ala²-Met⁵-enkephalinamide (DALA) (1.0 μg/μl) was administered intraventricularly to mice responding for electrical stimulation from the dorsal or ventral aspects of the VTA immediately prior to footshock (Experiment 1). Predictably, footshock reduced self-stimulation from the dorsal but not the ventral VTA immediately, 24, and 168 h following the stressor. Intraventricular DALA administration effected a partial attenuation of stressor-induced self-stimulation reductions from the dorsal VTA immediately and 24 h poststressor. Deficits appeared among DALA-Shocked mice responding for brain stimulation from the ventral VTA during comparable test intervals. The long-term depressant influence of footshock on self-stimulation from the dorsal VTA was abolished among DALA-treated mice and DALA-associated reductions in self-stimulation from the ventral A10 region among stressed mice were not evident 1 week later. Administration of D-Ala², N-Me-Phe⁴, Gly-Ol⁵-enkephalin (DAGO) (0.01 μg/μl) or D-Pen², D-Pen⁵-enkephalin (DPDPE) (1.0 μg/μl) intraventricularly prior to footshock effected an immediate and a delayed antagonism, respectively, of the stressor on self-stimulation from the dorsal VTA, which persisted for 1 week. Prophylactic administration of 0.001 μg/μl DAGO or 0.01 μg/μl DPDPE prior to the stressor failed to influence self-stimulation from the ventral VTA (Experiment 2). Administration of 0.01 μg/μl DAGO or 1.0 μg/μl DPDPE among mice responding for brain stimulation from the dorsal VTA following footshock produced a weak therapeutic effect immediately poststressor, but effected protracted amelioration of footshock-induced reductions of self-stimulation from the dorsal VTA (Experiment 3). Taken together, μ, δ, and μ-δ activation influenced self-stimulation differentially from the dorsal and ventral VTA according to the temporal order of opioid peptide challenge relative to stressor imposition. These data are discussed with respect to stressors, motivational alterations, and the putative modulating influence of endogenous enkephalin activity in subareas of the VTA.     

Physical Anhedonia and Future Psychopathology: An Electrocortical Continuity?

During the past decade, a great deal of effort has been focused on the identification of subjects who may be at “high-risk” for the development of psychopathology. Chapman, Chapman, and Raulin (1976) suggested that college students who report pervasive physical anhedonia may comprise a group of subjects vulnerable to the development of schizophrenia. The present study provides cortical evoked potential data consistent with this relationship. Auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) were collected from anhedonic subjects and normal controls under two conditions of auditory stimulation. In the first condition (nonsignal orienting), anhedonic and normal control subjects did not differ on any measure of the ERP. However, under signal conditions, reliable group differences emerged which were strikingly apparent in the late positive (P3) component. These group differences were maximal when the auditory signal predicted a high-interest event. Similar observations of reduced P3 activity have been frequently reported in studies with schizophrenic patients. In conjunction with previous investigations of anhedonic subjects, the present data continue to support the hypothesis that these subjects may constitute a psychosis-prone population.     

Affective Response to Color-Slide Stimuli in Subjects with Physical Anhedonia: A Three-Systems Analysis

Emotion-provoking visual stimuli were presented to college undergraduates identified as anhedonic or normal, based on their scores on the Physical Anhedonia Scale (Chapman, Chapman, & Raulin, 1976). The affective stimuli (35 mm color slides) were chosen to elicit a wide range of both positive and negative emotion, with emotional response assessed through affective judgments, viewing time, and monitoring of a variety of physiological systems (heart rate, skin conductance, and facial musculature). The experiment was successful in demonstrating differential emotional response in the two subject groups; anhedonic subjects reported a less positive response than control subjects to positive and neutral stimuli and showed no association between heart rate and the emotion content of the slides. Paradoxically, activity in the muscles of facial expression was greater in anhedonic than control subjects during the presentation of both positive and negative slides. No between-group differences were noted in the viewing-time measure. The results are discussed in the context of Lang's bioinformational theory of human emotion (Lang, 1984, 1985).     

Traduction et étude de validation de la version française de l’échelle « Specific Loss of Interest and Pleasure Scale,SLIPS » (Échelle de Perte Spécifique de l’Intérêt et du Plaisir,EPSIP)

ObjectivesThe Specific Loss of Interest and Pleasure Scale (SLIPS) has been created by Winer in 2014 to assess recent changes in anhedonia. The aim of the present study was to explore the psychometric properties of the French version of the scale.MethodsA total of 108 inpatients with a DSM-5 diagnosis of major depressive disorder and a score of at least 12 on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) were included in the study as well as 50 healthy subjects recruted from general population. All the subjects filled out 7 rating scales: SLIPS (23 items), The Snaith Hamiltion Pleasure Scale (SHAPS, 14 items), the Temporal Experience Pleasure Scale (TEPS, 18 items) rating the trait anticipatory (TEPS-ANT) and trait consummatory pleasure (TEPS-CONS), the BDI-II and the anhedonia subscale of the BDI-II (ANH-BDI), the short version of the Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS). Concurrent, discriminant and incremental validities were studied as well as reliability using the Cronbach alpha coefficient. Internal validity was studied using principal components analysis.Results and ConclusionCronbach's alpha coefficient was satisfactory (0,92) for the SLIPS. Significant correlations were observed between the SLIPS and the other anhedonia scales suggesting satisfactory concurrent validities. Significant difference between groups for the SLIPS was reported with higher scores for depressives comparatively with the controls. Principal components analysis found a one-factor solution suggesting that the SLIPS was unidimensional. The French version of the SLIPS has satisfactory validity and reliability that allow its use notably in depressives to detect the suicidal risk.     

Reconsidering anhedonia in depression: Lessons from translational neuroscience

Anhedonia is a core symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD), the neurobiological mechanisms of which remain poorly understood. Despite decades of speculation regarding the role of dopamine (DA) in anhedonic symptoms, empirical evidence has remained elusive, with frequent reports of contradictory findings. In the present review, we argue that this has resulted from an underspecified definition of anhedonia, which has failed to dissociate between consummatory and motivational aspects of reward behavior. Given substantial preclinical evidence that DA is involved primarily in motivational aspects of reward, we suggest that a refined definition of anhedonia that distinguishes between deficits in pleasure and motivation is essential for the purposes of identifying its neurobiological substrates. Moreover, bridging the gap between preclinical and clinical models of anhedonia may require moving away from the conceptualization of anhedonia as a steady-state, mood-like phenomena. Consequently, we introduce the term “decisional anhedonia” to address the influence of anhedonia on reward decision-making. These proposed modifications to the theoretical definition of anhedonia have implications for research, assessment and treatment of MDD.     

Longitudinal relationships of cytokines,depression and anhedonia in depressed adolescents

BackgroundDepression has been associated with low-grade elevation of plasma cytokines (e.g. interleukin-6, IL-6; tumor necrosis factor alpha, TNFα) in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in adults. Preclinical and clinical studies also suggest that IL-6 and TNFα elevation are associated with anhedonia. However, few studies have examined longitudinal relationships between cytokines and depression/anhedonia in clinically depressed samples, particularly adolescents.MethodsThirty-six adolescents with a depressive disorder receiving standard-of-care community treatment were assessed at a baseline and a follow-up timepoint. Self-report and clinical measures of depression and anhedonia, along with plasma IL-6 and TNFα levels, were obtained at both timepoints. Baseline cytokine measures were examined in association with baseline and follow-up clinical measures. On an exploratory basis, change in clinical measures over time was examined in relation to change in cytokine levels over time.ResultsHigher baseline TNFα levels predicted higher follow-up depression severity after approximately four months (controlling for baseline depression). Higher baseline TNFα levels also associated positively with baseline anhedonia and predicted higher anhedonia at follow-up (controlling for baseline anhedonia). No association was found between change in clinical measures and change in cytokine levels over time.ConclusionsAmong adolescents receiving standard-of-care community treatment for depression, higher levels of TNFα predicted greater depressive symptoms at 4-month follow-up, suggesting this cytokine may be used to help identify patients in need of more intensive treatment. Elevated TNFα levels were also associated with concurrent and future anhedonia symptoms, suggesting a specific mechanism in which TNFα affects depression trajectories. Future studies should examine the relationships between cytokine levels and depression/anhedonia symptoms at multiple timepoints in larger cohorts of depressed adolescents.     

Reduced striatal activation in females with major depression during the processing of affective stimuli

The extent to which affective reactivity and associated neural underpinnings are altered by depression remains equivocal. This study assessed striatal activation in fifty-one unmedicated female participants meeting DSM-IV criteria for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and 61 age-matched healthy females (HC) aged 17–63 years. Participants completed an affective reactivity functional magnetic resonance imaging task. Data were preprocessed using SPM8, and region-of-interest analyses were completed using MarsBaR to extract caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activation. General linear repeated measure ANOVAs were used to assess group differences and correlational analyses were used to measure the association between activation, depression severity, and anhedonia. Main effects of hemisphere, valence, and group status were observed, with MDD participants demonstrating decreased striatal activation compared with HC. Across groups and valence types, the left hemisphere demonstrated greater activation than the right hemisphere in the putamen and nucleus accumbens, whereas the right hemisphere demonstrated greater activation than the left in the caudate. Additionally, unpleasant stimuli elicited greater activation than pleasant and neutral stimuli in the caudate and putamen, and unpleasant stimuli elicited greater activation than neutral stimuli in the NAcc. There were no significant associations between activation, depression severity, and anhedonia. Overall, depression was characterized by reduced affective reactivity in the striatum, regardless of stimuli valence, supporting the emotion context insensitivity model of depression.     

Phencyclidine (PCP) produces sexually dimorphic effects on voluntary sucrose consumption and elevated plus maze behavior

Previous research in our laboratory indicates that the psychotomimetic drug phencyclidine (PCP) reduces voluntary sucrose consumption in male rats, potentially modeling the schizophrenic symptom of anhedonia. Given reports from the clinical literature that schizophrenia has a later age of onset and more favorable outcome in females, PCP might be expected to have sexually dimorphic effects in animal models of schizophrenia such as PCP-induced decreases in voluntary sucrose consumption. Young adult (66 days old) and adult (109 days old) male and female rats were trained to drink sucrose during a 30 min/day presentation protocol. On the day prior to the test day, animals were treated with PCP (15 mg/kg) or saline four hours after the onset of the sucrose presentation (20 h prior to the sucrose on the test day). PCP decreased sucrose consumption on the test day similarly in adult males and females, although females also showed decreased water consumption. In young animals, PCP decreased sucrose consumption in males but not in females. These results are consistent with the prediction that females will be less sensitive to the schizophrenia-like behavioral effects of PCP. In a separate study, the same animals were tested in an elevated plus maze one to two months after testing for voluntary sucrose consumption. Significant sex × drug interaction effects on a number of measures in the elevated plus maze indicated that prior exposure to PCP had an anxiolytic effect in females and an anxiogenic effect in males. While unexpected, this finding indicates an additional sexually dimorphic effect of PCP on behavior and its potential relevance to the PCP model of schizophrenia is discussed.     

Cancer induces inflammation and depressive-like behavior in the mouse: modulation by social housing

Considerable data demonstrate a high prevalence of depressive symptoms in cancer patients. This study introduces an experimental model to examine the effect of tumor on depressive-like behavior. Female C57BL/6 mice were injected i.p. with syngeneic ID8 ovarian carcinoma. Experiment 1 measured sucrose intake before and after tumor incubation to assess the effect of tumor on anhedonic depressive-like behavior. Experiment 2 examined effects of tumor and social housing on anhedonia and a second depressive-like behavior, tail suspension test (TST) immobility. Systemic proinflammatory and antiinflammatory cytokines were measured following each experiment. Additional behaviors assessed the specificity of tumor’s effect on depressive-like behavior. Tumor caused a reduction in sucrose intake relative to baseline and control levels (P < .05). Moreover, individually-housed tumor-bearing mice exhibited a lower sucrose preference than group-housed tumor-bearing or control mice in either housing condition (P < .05). Although tumor-bearing mice exhibited less locomotion than controls (P < .001), there was no significant effect of tumor on TST immobility. Tumor caused higher levels of systemic proinflammatory and antiinflammatory cytokines and smaller body weight (P < .05), but appetite and motor capacity were not significantly affected. Statistical mediation analysis showed that circulating interleukin-6 partially mediated the effect between tumor and home cage locomotion (P < .01) but not between tumor and sucrose intake. It is concluded that tumor elicits anhedonic depressive-like behavior in a murine model of ovarian cancer. This may have important implications for etiology of depression in the clinical cancer setting.