Reduced Right Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Activity While Inhibiting Positive Affect Is Associated with Improvement in Hedonic Capacity After 8 Weeks of Antidepressant Treatment in Major Depressive Disorder

Anhedonia, a reduced ability to experience pleasure, is a chief symptom of major depressive disorder and is related to reduced frontostriatal connectivity when attempting to upregulate positive emotion. The present study examined another facet of positive emotion regulation associated with anhedonia—namely, the downregulation of positive affect—and its relation to prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity.