TY - JOUR
T1 - Dissecting the impact of depression on decision-making
AU - Lawlor, Victoria M.
AU - Webb, Christian A.
AU - Wiecki, Thomas V.
AU - Frank, Michael J.
AU - Trivedi, Madhukar
AU - Pizzagalli, Diego A.
AU - Dillon, Daniel G.
N1 - Funding Information:
In the past 3 years, Dr Dillon has provided consulting services to Pfizer, Inc., for projects unrelated to this report. Over the past 3 years, Dr Pizzagalli has received consulting fees from Akili Interactive Labs, BlackThorn Therapeutics, Boehringer Ingelheim, Posit Science, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals for activities unrelated to the current research. Dr Trivedi reports the following lifetime disclosures: research support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Cyberonics Inc., National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Johnson & Johnson, and consulting and speaker fees from Abbott Laboratories Inc., Akzo (Organon Pharmaceuticals Inc.), Allergan Sales LLC, Alkermes, AstraZeneca, Axon Advisors, Brintellix, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Cephalon Inc., Cerecor, Eli Lilly & Company, Evotec, Fabre Kramer Pharmaceuticals Inc., Forest Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Health Research Associates, Johnson & Johnson, Lundbeck, MedAvante Medscape, Medtronic, Merck, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Development America Inc., MSI Methylation Sciences Inc., Nestle Health Science-PamLab Inc., Naurex, Neuronetics, One Carbon Therapeutics Ltd., Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, Pamlab, Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals Inc., Pfizer Inc., PgxHealth, Phoenix Marketing Solutions, Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Ridge Diagnostics, Roche Products Ltd., Sepracor, SHIRE Development, Sierra, SK Life and Science, Sunovion, Takeda, Tal Medical/Puretech Venture, Targacept, Transcept, VantagePoint, Vivus, and Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. All other authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.
Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. The analysis was made possible by funding from McLean Hospital and a grant from NIMH (R00MH094438) awarded to Dr Dillon. Data collection and prior analyses were made possible by additional funding from NIMH (Pizzagalli: R01MH68376; Trivedi: U01MH092221; McGrath, Parsey, Weissman: U01MH092250). The authors are solely responsible for the content of this manuscript, which does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
Funding Information:
The analysis was made possible by funding from McLean Hospital and a grant from NIMH (R00MH094438) awarded to Dr Dillon. Data collection and prior analyses were made possible by additional funding from NIMH (Pizzagalli: R01MH68376; Trivedi: U01MH092221; McGrath, Parsey, Weissman: U01MH092250). The authors are solely responsible for the content of this manuscript, which does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
Publisher Copyright:
© Cambridge University Press 2019.
PY - 2020/7/1
Y1 - 2020/7/1
N2 - Background Cognitive deficits in depressed adults may reflect impaired decision-making. To investigate this possibility, we analyzed data from unmedicated adults with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and healthy controls as they performed a probabilistic reward task. The Hierarchical Drift Diffusion Model (HDDM) was used to quantify decision-making mechanisms recruited by the task, to determine if any such mechanism was disrupted by depression.Methods Data came from two samples (Study 1: 258 MDD, 36 controls; Study 2: 23 MDD, 25 controls). On each trial, participants indicated which of two similar stimuli was presented; correct identifications were rewarded. Quantile-probability plots and the HDDM quantified the impact of MDD on response times (RT), speed of evidence accumulation (drift rate), and the width of decision thresholds, among other parameters.Results RTs were more positively skewed in depressed v. healthy adults, and the HDDM revealed that drift rates were reduced - and decision thresholds were wider - in the MDD groups. This pattern suggests that depressed adults accumulated the evidence needed to make decisions more slowly than controls did.Conclusions Depressed adults responded slower than controls in both studies, and poorer performance led the MDD group to receive fewer rewards than controls in Study 1. These results did not reflect a sensorimotor deficit but were instead due to sluggish evidence accumulation. Thus, slowed decision-making - not slowed perception or response execution - caused the performance deficit in MDD. If these results generalize to other tasks, they may help explain the broad cognitive deficits seen in depression.
AB - Background Cognitive deficits in depressed adults may reflect impaired decision-making. To investigate this possibility, we analyzed data from unmedicated adults with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and healthy controls as they performed a probabilistic reward task. The Hierarchical Drift Diffusion Model (HDDM) was used to quantify decision-making mechanisms recruited by the task, to determine if any such mechanism was disrupted by depression.Methods Data came from two samples (Study 1: 258 MDD, 36 controls; Study 2: 23 MDD, 25 controls). On each trial, participants indicated which of two similar stimuli was presented; correct identifications were rewarded. Quantile-probability plots and the HDDM quantified the impact of MDD on response times (RT), speed of evidence accumulation (drift rate), and the width of decision thresholds, among other parameters.Results RTs were more positively skewed in depressed v. healthy adults, and the HDDM revealed that drift rates were reduced - and decision thresholds were wider - in the MDD groups. This pattern suggests that depressed adults accumulated the evidence needed to make decisions more slowly than controls did.Conclusions Depressed adults responded slower than controls in both studies, and poorer performance led the MDD group to receive fewer rewards than controls in Study 1. These results did not reflect a sensorimotor deficit but were instead due to sluggish evidence accumulation. Thus, slowed decision-making - not slowed perception or response execution - caused the performance deficit in MDD. If these results generalize to other tasks, they may help explain the broad cognitive deficits seen in depression.
KW - Computational modeling
KW - decision-making
KW - depression
KW - drift diffusion model
KW - reward
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U2 - 10.1017/S0033291719001570
DO - 10.1017/S0033291719001570
M3 - Article
C2 - 31280757
AN - SCOPUS:85068565542
SN - 0033-2917
VL - 50
SP - 1613
EP - 1622
JO - Psychological Medicine
JF - Psychological Medicine
IS - 10
ER -