부산대학교 도서관

The prevalence of depressive symptoms has increased during the COVID‐19 pandemic, especially among those with greater pandemic‐related stress exposure; however, not all individuals exposed to pandemic stress will develop depression. Determining which individuals are vulnerable to depressive symptoms as a result of this stress could lead to an improved understanding of the etiology of depression. This study sought to determine whether neural sensitivity to monetary and/or social reward prospectively predicts depressive symptoms during periods of high stress. 121 participants attended pre‐pandemic laboratory visits where they completed monetary and social reward tasks while electroencephalogram was recorded. Subsequently, from March to August 2020, we sent eight questionnaires probing depressive symptoms and exposure to pandemic‐related stressors. Using repeated‐measures multilevel models, we evaluated whether neural response to social or monetary reward predicted increases in depressive symptoms across the early course of the pandemic. Furthermore, we examined whether neural response to social or monetary reward moderated the association between pandemic‐related episodic stressors and depressive symptoms. Pandemic‐related stress exposure was strongly associated with depressive symptoms. Additionally, we found that blunted neural response to social but not monetary reward predicted increased depressive symptoms during the pandemic. However, neither neural response to social nor monetary reward moderated the association between episodic stress exposure and depressive symptoms. Our findings indicate that neural response to social reward may be a useful predictor of depressive symptomatology under times of chronic stress, particularly stress with a social dimension. Our results highlight that relative to monetary reward sensitivity, social reward sensitivity may be particularly relevant to depression liability. We also demonstrate that an association between social reward sensitivity and depressive symptoms emerged only in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic, supporting evidence of blunted reward sensitivity as a marker of stress susceptibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]