Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-3-2025
Abstract
Anhedonia is increasingly recognized as a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology. New evidence demonstrates that anhedonia is present in infancy and early childhood. Structural variability in striatal regions involved in reward processing and pleasure seeking is concurrently linked to anhedonia, yet few studies have examined whether striatal differences presage anhedonia, and none have examined prospective associations before middle childhood. The present study examined whether neuroanatomical markers that confer risk for anhedonia can be detected as early as the neonatal period. Specifically, we tested whether the volume of striatal regions in neonates predicted the emergence of infant anhedonic behaviors at six months of age. Our sample included 89 neonates (47 females, 42 males) from the Care Project - a longitudinal cohort study of pregnant individuals and their children. Neonatal striatal volume (nucleus accumbens, putamen, and caudate) was assessed using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; Mage: 43 postconceptional weeks). Anhedonic behaviors were measured using the Infant Hedonic/Anhedonic Processing Index (HAPI-Infant) at six months. Larger neonatal nucleus accumbens (right: β = 0.32, p = .003; left: β = 0.22, p = .04) and putamen (right: β = 0.29, p = .03; left: β = 0.28, p = .04) volume predicted more anhedonic behaviors at six months, covarying for intracranial volume, postconceptional age at scan, sex at birth, and birth weight percentile. This study demonstrates that neonatal striatal volume is associated with anhedonia in infancy and provides the first evidence that markers of vulnerability to anhedonia can be detected in neonates.
Recommended Citation
Nevarez-Brewster, M., Demers, C. H., Irwin, J. L., Glynn, L. M., Styner, M. A., Haase, M. H. Hoffman, M. C., Pizzagalli, D. A., Hankin, B. L., & Davis, E. P. (2025). Neonatal striatal volume is associated with infant anhedonia. Journal of Affective Disorders, 392, 120211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.120211
Supplementary material
Copyright
The authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
Child Psychology Commons, Maternal and Child Health Commons, Neurosciences Commons, Other Psychiatry and Psychology Commons, Psychological Phenomena and Processes Commons
Comments
This article was originally published in Journal of Affective Disorders, volume 392, in 2025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.120211