ArticleCell reports. Medicine2026
Blunted anticipation, but not consummation, of food rewards in depression.
Article in Cell reports. Medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Obesity is associated with greater variability of reward signals in the nucleus accumbens.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Diminished anticipatory pleasure predicts anhedonia in women with endometrisois: a case-control study.BMC women's health · 2026Article
- Glucose levels are associated with mood, but the association is mediated by ratings of metabolic state.EBioMedicine · 2026Observational
- An interoceptive model of energy allostasis linking metabolic and mental health.Science advances · 2025Review
- Altered food liking in depression is driven by macronutrient composition.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Differential Associations of Anticipatory and Consummatory Anhedonia With Depression and Social Anxiety Symptoms: A Network Analysis of University Students.Depression and anxiety · 2025Article
- Early anhedonia distinguishes behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia from Alzheimer's disease.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Anhedonia is a core symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD) and includes anticipatory and consummatory reward processes. Yet some measures still equate anhedonia with reduced consummatory pleasure and have rarely been validated against behavioral tasks. In a cross-sectional study, 52 patients with MDD and 51 healthy control participants (HCPs) completed metabolic assessments and repeated food reward ratings, measuring wanting and liking from anticipation to consumption. Patients with MDD showed blunted anticipatory wanting instead of consummatory liking. Once food rewards were available, wanting increased relative to HCPs. More severe anhedonia was linked to reduced anticipatory wanting and steeper increases with consummation, arguing against a consummatory pleasure deficit. Acyl ghrelin was associated with higher reward ratings, while poorer glycemic control related to more severe anhedonia. These findings suggest that anhedonia reflects impaired reward anticipation rather than diminished enjoyment of food rewards and highlight the gut-brain axis as a potential therapeutic target.
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