ReviewFrontiers in behavioral neuroscience2015
Reconceptualizing anhedonia: novel perspectives on balancing the pleasure networks in the human brain.
Review in Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 119 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
119 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 230 citations in OpenAlex.
- Examining the relationship between pre-treatment anhedonia and treatment outcomes in individuals with anxiety or depression: A systematic review.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Pooled it
- Possible New Symptoms of Tobacco Withdrawal III: Reduced Positive Affect-A Review and Meta-analysis.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2021Pooled it
- Characterizing anhedonia: A systematic review of neuroimaging across the subtypes of reward processing deficits in depression.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2020Pooled it
- Possible New Symptoms of Tobacco Withdrawal II: Anhedonia-A Systematic Review.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2020Pooled it
- Positive Affect Treatment for Depression, Anxiety, and Low Positive Affect: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2026Trial
- Efficacy and safety of Toludesvenlafaxine extended-release tablets in the treatment of treatment-resistant depression.BMC psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Positive affect treatment targets reward sensitivity: A randomized controlled trial.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2023Trial
- Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement remediates anhedonia in chronic opioid use by enhancing neurophysiological responses during savoring of natural rewards.Psychological medicine · 2023Trial
- Effects of stress-induced inflammation on reward processing in healthy young women.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2020Trial
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- Neural response to reward uncertainty in adolescents with mood and anxiety symptoms.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Reward pursuit during a translational reward task correlates with anhedonia reductions following rTMS in patients with major depressive disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Understanding Anticipatory Anhedonia in Schizophrenia and Depression: Linking Reward Representation Maintenance from a Transdiagnostic Perspective.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Article
- Link Between Anhedonia, Reward Dysfunction, and Eating Behavior Across Mental and Physical Health Conditions: A Narrative Review.Nutrients · 2026Review
- The Walla Emotion Model (WEM): A New Terminology Redefining Affective Dysregulation in Clinical Psychopathology.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Optogenetic Hedonic Hotspots in the Orbitofrontal Cortex and Insula: Causing Enhancement of Sweetness "Liking".The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Inefficient integration between effort and reward in anhedonia.Psychological medicine · 2026Article
- Don't Tell Us How Strong It Feels! Converging and Discriminant Validity of an Indirect Measure of Emotional Evidence Accumulation Efficiency.Journal of Intelligence · 2026Article
- The prefrontal-striatal signatures of reduced model-based learning in depressed patients.Annals of general psychiatry · 2026Article
59 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Anhedonia, the lack of pleasure, has been shown to be a critical feature of a range of psychiatric disorders. Yet, it is currently measured primarily through subjective self-reports and as such has been difficult to submit to rigorous scientific analysis. New insights from affective neuroscience hold considerable promise in improving our understanding of anhedonia and for providing useful objective behavioral measures to complement traditional self-report measures, potentially leading to better diagnoses and novel treatments. Here, we review the state-of-the-art of hedonia research and specifically the established mechanisms of wanting, liking, and learning. Based on this framework we propose to conceptualize anhedonia as impairments in some or all of these processes, thereby departing from the longstanding view of anhedonia as solely reduced subjective experience of pleasure. We discuss how deficits in each of the reward components can lead to different expressions, or subtypes, of anhedonia affording novel ways of measurement. Specifically, we review evidence suggesting that patients suffering from depression and schizophrenia show impairments in wanting and learning, while some aspects of conscious liking seem surprisingly intact. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that anhedonia is heterogeneous across psychiatric disorders, depending on which parts of the pleasure networks are most affected. This in turn has implications for diagnosis and treatment of anhedonia.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.