Stress-related anhedonia is associated with ventral striatum reactivity to reward and transdiagnostic psychiatric symptomatology.

Abstract

Early life stress (ELS) is consistently associated with increased risk for subsequent psychopathology. Individual differences in neural response to reward may confer vulnerability to stress-related psychopathology. Using data from the ongoing Duke Neurogenetics Study, the present study examined whether reward-related ventral striatum (VS) reactivity moderates the relationship between retrospectively reported ELS and anhedonic symptomatology. We further assessed whether individual differences in reward-related VS reactivity were associated with other depressive symptoms and problematic alcohol use via stress-related anhedonic symptoms and substance use-associated coping.