UNASSIGNED: Eating disorders (EDs) are conceptualized as disorders of under- and over-control, with impulsivity reflecting under-control. Extant research indicates that impulsivity and related factors such as reward sensitivity and punishment sensitivity may serve as trait-level transdiagnostic risk and/or maintenance factors in EDs. Findings on impulsivity and reward and punishment sensitivity by diagnosis are mixed and research on the relationship between these factors and ED symptoms, hospital course, and treatment outcomes is limited.
UNASSIGNED: Participants (N = 228) were patients admitted to a specialized inpatient behavioral treatment program for EDs who agreed to participate in a longitudinal study and completed self-report measures of impulsivity, reward sensitivity, and punishment sensitivity at admission. Weight and ED symptomatology were measured at admission and discharge. Hospital course variables included length of stay and premature treatment dropout.
UNASSIGNED: Impulsivity was lower in individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) restricting type compared to those with AN binge/purge type or bulimia nervosa; no other group differences were observed. Higher impulsivity was associated with greater bulimic symptoms on the Eating Disorder Inventory 2 (EDI-2) at admission. Impulsivity was not related to ED symptoms, weight outcomes, length of hospital stay, or treatment dropout at program discharge.
UNASSIGNED: Impulsivity may help distinguish restrictive versus binge/purge EDs, but does not necessarily relate to discharge outcomes in an intensive inpatient ED program. Findings from this study provide novel contributions to the literature on personality traits in EDs and have important clinical implications. Results suggest that patients with higher levels of impulsivity or reward and punishment sensitivity can be expected to respond to inpatient treatment. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

BACKGROUND: Adolescent substance use poses a critical public health challenge, intertwined with risk-taking behavior, criminality, functional impairment, and comorbid mental and physical health issues. Adolescents with bipolar spectrum disorders (BSD) exhibit heightened susceptibility to substance use, necessitating a nuanced exploration of the bipolar-substance use relationship.
METHODS: This study addressed gaps in the literature by employing a prospective, longitudinal design with 443 Philadelphia-area adolescents, tracking BSD symptoms and substance use. We predicted that BSD symptoms would be associated with increases in substance use, and that these effects would be more pronounced for individuals with a BSD and those with high reward sensitivity.
RESULTS: Hypomanic symptoms predicted subsequent substance use, with a stronger association observed in individuals diagnosed with BSD. Contrary to expectations, depressive symptoms did not exhibit a similar relationship. Although the hypothesized moderating role of reward sensitivity was not supported, higher reward sensitivity predicted increased substance use.
CONCLUSIONS: Symptoms and substance use are only captured for the month prior to each session due to the assessment timeline. This highlights the benefits of frequent assessments over a shorter time frame to monitor real-time changes. Alternative classification methods for reward sensitivity, such as brain or behavior-based assessments, might yield different results.
CONCLUSIONS: This study\'s contributions include evaluating substance use broadly, utilizing a longitudinal design for temporal clarity, and shifting the focus from substance use predicting mood symptoms to the inverse. The findings underscore the need for continued exploration of mood symptom predictors of substance use, emphasizing the role of reward sensitivity.

Aberrant levels of reward sensitivity have been linked to substance use disorder and are characterized by alterations in reward processing in the ventral striatum (VS). Less is known about how reward sensitivity and subclinical substance use relate to striatal function during social rewards (e.g. positive peer feedback). Testing this relation is critical for predicting risk for development of substance use disorder. In this pre-registered study, participants (N = 44) underwent fMRI while completing well-matched tasks that assess neural response to reward in social and monetary domains. Contrary to our hypotheses, aberrant reward sensitivity blunted the relationship between substance use and striatal activation during receipt of rewards, regardless of domain. Moreover, exploratory whole-brain analyses showed unique relations between substance use and social rewards in temporoparietal junction. Psychophysiological interactions demonstrated that aberrant reward sensitivity is associated with increased connectivity between the VS and ventromedial prefrontal cortex during social rewards. Finally, we found that substance use was associated with decreased connectivity between the VS and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex for social rewards, independent of reward sensitivity. These findings demonstrate nuanced relations between reward sensitivity and substance use, even among those without substance use disorder, and suggest altered reward-related engagement of cortico-VS responses as potential predictors of developing disordered behavior.

In patients with mood disorders, negative affective biases - systematically prioritising and interpreting information negatively - are common. A translational cognitive task testing this bias has shown that depressed patients have a reduced preference for a high reward under ambiguous decision-making conditions. The precise mechanisms underscoring this bias are, however, not yet understood. We therefore developed a set of measures to probe the underlying source of the behavioural bias by testing its relationship to a participant\'s reward sensitivity, value sensitivity and reward learning rate. One-hundred-forty-eight participants completed three online behavioural tasks: the original ambiguous-cue decision-making task probing negative affective bias, a probabilistic reward learning task probing reward sensitivity and reward learning rate, and a gambling task probing value sensitivity. We modelled the learning task through a dynamic signal detection theory model and the gambling task through an expectation-maximisation prospect theory model. Reward sensitivity from the probabilistic reward task (β = 0.131, p = 0.024) and setting noise from the probabilistic reward task (β = -0.187, p = 0.028) both predicted the affective bias score in a logistic regression. Increased negative affective bias, at least on this specific task, may therefore be driven in part by a combination of reduced sensitivity to rewards and more variable responses.

UNASSIGNED: Repetitive Nonsuicidal Self-Injury (R-NSSI) is complex and prevalent in adolescents. Although the reward system is a promising mechanism to explain R-NSSI, the specific processes of reward and punishment related to R-NSSI remain unclear. This study examined whether adolescents with R-NSSI displayed difficulties in both reward and punishment contexts, and further explored the role of inhibitory control in processing monetary reward and punishment.
UNASSIGNED: Within a cohort from two middle schools (N = 3,475, 48.6 % female, Mage = 12.95), a total of 187 adolescents completed three novel behavioral tasks. Specifically, in Study 1, 36 adolescents with R-NSSI and 28 without NSSI completed adapted incentive-delay tasks to evaluate sensitivity to reward and punishment. In Study 2, 27 adolescents with R-NSSI and 21 without NSSI were given novel incentive delay-two choice oddball task to evaluate the interaction between reward and inhibitory control. In Study 3, 38 adolescents with R-NSSI and 35 without NSSI completed similar task to assess the interaction between punishment and inhibitory control.
UNASSIGNED: Adolescents with R-NSSI were characterized by higher levels of behavioral reward and punishment sensitivity than adolescents without NSSI. More importantly, the difference between reward and punishment in inhibitory control of R-NSSI was found. Compared to adolescents without NSSI, adolescents with R-NSSI showed lower levels of inhibitory control in response to cues depicting punishment content but not to those depicting reward content.
UNASSIGNED: This study provides novel experimental evidence that heightened behavioral sensitivity to both reward and punishment may be relevant trait marker in R-NSSI among adolescents, and emphasizes that punishment not reward interact with inhibitory control in the R-NSSI.

Trait reward sensitivity, risk for developing substance use, and mood disorders have each been linked with altered striatal responses to reward. Moreover, striatal response to reward is sensitive to social context, such as the presence of a peer, and drugs are often sought out and consumed in social contexts or as a result of social experiences. Thus, mood disorder symptoms, striatal responses to social context and social reward may play a role in substance use. To investigate this possibility, this dataset was collected as part of a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant titled \"Aberrant Reward Sensitivity: Mechanisms Underlying Substance Use\" (R03-DA046733). The overarching goal was to characterize the associations between neural responses to social and nonsocial rewards, trait reward sensitivity, substance use, and mood disorder symptoms. After obtaining questionnaire data quantifying reward sensitivity, substance use, and other psychosocial characteristics, young adults (N=59; 14 male, 45 female; mean age: 20.89 years ± 1.75 years) completed four fMRI tasks testing different features of social and reward processing. These included: 1) a strategic reward-based decision-making task with Ultimatum and Dictator Game conditions; 2) a task where participants shared rewards or losses with peers, strangers, or non-human partners; 3) a task in which participants received well-matched social and monetary rewards and punishment; and 4) a monetary incentive delay (MID) task in which participants tried to obtain or avoid rewards and losses of different magnitude. This dataset includes sociodemographic questionnaire data, anatomical, task-based fMRI, and corresponding behavioral task-based data. We outline several opportunities for extension and reuse, including exploration of individual differences, cross-task comparisons, and representational similarity analyses.

OBJECTIVE: Reward and punishment sensitivity are known to be altered in anorexia nervosa (AN). Most research has examined these constructs separately although motivated behavior is influenced by considering both the potential for reward and risk of punishment. The present study sought to compare the relative balance of reward and punishment sensitivity in AN versus healthy controls (HCs) and examine whether motivational bias is associated with AN symptoms and treatment outcomes.
METHODS: Adolescents and adults with AN (n = 262) in a partial hospitalization program completed the Eating Disorders Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q), Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) scales, and Sensitivity to Punishment/Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire (SPSRQ) at admission and discharge. HCs (HC; n = 90) completed the BIS/BAS and SPSRQ. Motivational Bias Scores were calculated to reflect the dominance of reward versus punishment sensitivity.
RESULTS: Individuals with AN demonstrated significantly greater bias toward punishment sensitivity than HC. In AN, a bias toward punishment was associated with higher EDE-Q Global score at admission. Change in motivational bias during treatment predicted EDE-Q Global scores, but not BMI, at discharge, with greater increases in reward sensitivity or greater decreases in punishment sensitivity during treatment predicting lower eating pathology. Similar findings were observed using the BIS/BAS and SPSRQ.
CONCLUSIONS: Change in motivational bias during treatment is associated with improved outcomes in AN. However, it appears that much of the change in motivational bias can be attributed to changes in punishment sensitivity, rather than reward sensitivity. Future research should examine the mechanisms underlying punishment sensitivity decreases during treatment.
UNASSIGNED: Sensitivity to reward and punishment may be important treatment targets for individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN). To date, most research has considered reward and punishment sensitivity separately, rather than examining their relationship to each other. We found that the balance of reward and punishment sensitivity (i.e., motivational bias) differs between healthy controls and those with AN and that this bias is associated with eating disorder symptoms and treatment outcome.

Past research suggests that parents\' familism values play a positive role in Latinx American youth\'s prosocial tendencies. However, little is known about how individual differences in youth\'s neural development may contribute to this developmental process. Therefore, using two-wave longitudinal data of 1916 early adolescents (mean age = 9.90 years; 50% girls) and their parents (mean age = 38.43 years; 90% mothers) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, this pre-registered study took a biopsychosocial approach to examine the moderating role of youth\'s neural reward sensitivity in the link between parents\' familism values and youth\'s prosocial behaviors. Results showed that parents\' familism values were associated with increased prosocial behaviors among youth two years later, controlling for baseline prosocial behaviors and demographic covariates. Notably, parents\' familism values played a larger role in promoting youth\'s prosocial behaviors among youth who showed lower ventral striatum activation during reward anticipation. Moreover, such association between parents\' familism values and youth\'s later prosocial behaviors was stronger among youth who showed lower levels of prosocial behaviors initially. Taken together, the findings highlight individual differences in neurobiological development and baseline prosocial behaviors as markers of sensitivity to cultural environments with regard to Latinx American youth\'s prosocial development.

The Roman high-avoidance (RHA) and low-avoidance (RLA) rat lines/strains were established in Rome through bidirectional selection of Wistar rats for rapid (RHA) or extremely poor (RLA) acquisition of a two-way active avoidance task. Relative to RHAs, RLA rats exhibit enhanced threat sensitivity, anxiety, fear and vulnerability to stress, a passive coping style and increased sensitivity to frustration. Thus, RLA rats\' phenotypic profile falls well within the \"internalizing\" behavior spectrum. Compared with RLAs and other rat strains/stocks, RHAs present increased impulsivity and reward sensitivity, deficits in social behavior and attentional/cognitive processes, novelty-induced hyper-locomotion and vulnerability to psychostimulant sensitization and drug addiction. Thus, RHA rats\' phenotypes are consistent with a \"disinhibiting externalizing\" profile. Many neurobiological/molecular traits differentiate both rat lines/strains. For example, relative to RLA rats, RHAs exhibit decreased function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus and amygdala, increased functional tone of the mesolimbic dopamine system, a deficit of central metabotropic glutamate-2 (mGlu2) receptors, increased density of serotonin 5-HT2A receptors in the PFC, impairment of GABAergic transmission in the PFC, alterations of several synaptic markers and increased density of pyramidal immature dendrític spines in the PFC. These characteristics suggest an immature brain of RHA rats and are reminiscent of schizophrenia features like hypofrontality and disruption of the excitation/inhibition cortical balance. We review evidence supporting RLA rats as a valid model of anxiety/fear, stress and frustration vulnerability, whereas RHA rats represent a promising translational model of neurodevelopmental alterations related to impulsivity, schizophrenia-relevant features and comorbidity with drug addiction vulnerability.

The study of food addiction (FA) has become relevant due to its high prevalence, the negative impact on quality of life, and its association with neuropsychological and psychiatric symptoms. Several studies have provided scientific support for these associations, however, the results are contradictory. Additionally, studies have unsuccessfully elucidated the true nature of the failures in executive functioning in people with FA symptomatology, particularly when it comes to executive deficits. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to establish whether the presence of executive dysfunction, depressive symptoms and binge eating problems, as well as high reward sensitivity entails a greater severity in FA traits and high body mass index (BMI) in a sample of Mexican adults.
The sample consisted of Mexican men and women between 21-59 years (n = 36); who completed self-report questionnaires and performance tests to measure the study variables. Additionally, BMI was estimated with self-reported height and weight.
Our results showed that a high number of FA symptoms were associated with higher executive dysfunction scores, greater reward sensitivity, and more severe depressive and binge eating problems. Furthermore, factors that are more strongly associated with higher scores of FA include severe executive deficits, greater activation of the punishment avoidance system, and persistence in the search for reward when the depressive symptoms increased. The factors that best explained changes in the estimated BMI of women were a decreased crystallized intellectual capacity and the inability to control food intake as the number of FA symptoms increased.
In summary, the cognitive functioning profile characterized by general failure of the executive functioning, as well as a greater activation of the Punishment Avoidance System and persistence in the search for reward, were associated with greater severity of FA symptoms, especially when the depressive symptomatology was severe. In parallel, the psychopathology in participants associated with FA confirms the contribution of anxious and depressive symptomatology and borderline personality traits which could facilitate the expression of clinically relevant FA symptoms in women. Finally, we found that decreased crystallized intellectual capacity and inability to control food intake were linked to higher BMI when the number of FA symptoms increased.