Trial reportBiological psychology2016
Do depressive symptoms "blunt" effort? An analysis of cardiac engagement and withdrawal for an increasingly difficult task.
Trial report in Biological psychology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Physiological responses to acute psychological stress as a biomarker for depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletinPooled it
- Feasibility of smartphone app-based neuropsychological tasks for screening people with subclinical depression and anxiety: a preliminary validation study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- A common alteration in effort-based decision-making in apathy, anhedonia, and late circadian rhythm.eLife · 2025Article
- Fractal correlation properties of heart rate variability and respiratory frequency as measures of endurance exercise durability.European journal of applied physiology · 2025Article
- Affective Influences on the Intensity of Mental Effort: 25 Years of Programmatic Research.Emotion review : journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion · 2025Article
- Economic Choice and Heart Rate Fractal Scaling Indicate That Cognitive Effort Is Reduced by Depression and Boosted by Sad Mood.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2023Article
- RZ Interval as an Impedance Cardiography Indicator of Effort-Related Cardiac Sympathetic Activity.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2021Article
- Appetitive Motivation in Depressive Anhedonia: Effects of Piece-Rate Cash Rewards on Cardiac and Behavioral Outcomes.Motivation science · 2020Article
- Task-specific prioritization of reward and effort information: Novel insights from behavior and computational modeling.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2019Article
- Get Going! Self-focused Attention and Sensitivity to Action and Inaction Effort Primes.Motivation science · 2018Article
- Conscientiousness and Effort-Related Cardiac Activity in Response to Piece-Rate Cash Incentives.Motivation and emotion · 2018Article
- Association Between Depression, Anxiety, and Antidepressant Use With T-Wave Amplitude and QT-Interval.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2018Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Research on depression and effort has suggested "depressive blunting"-lower cardiovascular reactivity in response to challenges and stressors. Many studies, however, find null effects or higher reactivity. The present research draws upon motivational intensity theory, a broad model of effort that predicts cases in which depressive symptoms should increase or decrease effort. Because depressive symptoms can influence task-difficulty appraisals-people see tasks as subjectively harder-people high in depressive symptoms should engage higher effort at objectively easier levels of difficulty but also quit sooner. A sample of adults completed a mental effort challenge with four levels of difficulty, from very easy to difficult-but-feasible. Depressive symptoms were assessed with the CESD and DASS; effort-related cardiac activity was assessed via markers of contractility (e.g., the cardiac pre-ejection period [PEP]) obtained with impedance cardiography. The findings supported the theory's predictions. When the task was relatively easier, people high in depressive symptoms showed higher contractility (shorter PEP), consistent with greater effort. When the task was relatively harder, people high in depressive symptoms showed diminished contractility, consistent with quitting. The results suggest that past research has been observing a small part of a larger trajectory of trying and quitting, and they illustrate the value of a theoretically grounded analysis of depressive symptoms and effort-related cardiac activity.
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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.