Neural correlates of reward anticipation in 2000 children aged 9-10 years: relation to psychotic-like experiences and depressive symptoms

Abstract

BackgroundSchizophrenia spectrum disorders and depression have been associated with reductions in brain activation during reward anticipation. It is not known whether brain signals associated with reward anticipation relate to psychopathology dimensions of depression or schizophrenia in childhood prior to adolescence.\n\nMethodWe examined whether fMRI brain correlates of reward anticipation related to psychotic-like experiences and symptoms of depression, in 2129 children from the ABCD study aged 9-10 years.Psychotic-like experiences and depression were assessed using the Prodromal Questionnaire Brief Child version and the K-SADS. We fused regional MRI summary statistics for reward anticipation activation in the ABCD study data release 1.0 (contrast of expected large reward versus neutral expectation). Relations between brain activation and psychopathology were assessed using linear regressions in R for 82 brain regions, corrected for multiple comparisons for the number of regions using false discovery rate.\n\nResultsFrom several regressions, there was an isolated unilateral association between right parsorbitalis activation and psychotic-like experiences, but no other significant associations between brain activation and psychopathology.\n\nConclusionsIn 9-10 year old children, reward anticipation is not strongly related to psychotic-like experiences or depression. As previous evidence links depression and schizophrenia to reduced reward anticipation in adults and older adolescents, it appears likely that such associations develop over the adolescent period: this can be tested in follow-up studies of the ABCD cohort.