Depression Attenuates Caudate and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Alpha and Beta Power Response to Reward

Depression is a prevalent psychiatric condition and a common comorbidity across neurological disorders. Common symptoms include anhedonia, negative emotional biases, and cognitive dysfunction. Beta (15-30 Hz) neural oscillations have been shown to increase during reward-based learning within fronto-striatal reward networks. Corticostriatal beta oscillations have also been implicated in cognitive functions including working memory. However, the relationship between beta oscillations and depression remains unknown. Using intracranial recordings, we aimed to investigate how depression modulates the spectral power of neural oscillations in corticostriatal structures during reward feedback in a working memory task. Thirty movement disorder patients undergoing awake deep brain stimulation surgery with electrode trajectories traversing the caudate or dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) participated in this study. We recorded local field potential data intraoperatively as subjects completed a 2-back verbal working memory task where they identified whether a word matched the word presented two trials prior. Subjects received reward in the form of visual feedback for correct answers. Word stimuli had either a positive, negative, or neutral emotional valence. Subjects completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II preoperatively, and we used a cut-off score of 14 to identify patients with depression. We found that caudate and DLPFC power increased in the alpha (8-15 Hz) and beta range during reward feedback and that this increase was significantly greater for subjects without depression compared to depressed subjects. In non-depressed patients, positive feedback stimuli evoked significantly higher beta power in the caudate during reward compared to neutral and negative stimuli. In depressed patients, emotional valence did not affect reward-related caudate spectral power, while DLPFC alpha power was significantly higher following positive emotional stimuli in comparison to neutral but not negative stimuli. We additionally found that anti-depressant medications (ADMs) generally blunted alpha and beta reward signaling processes in the DLPFC. This blunting effect on reward-related alpha power in the DLPFC, however, was reversed in depressed patients, indicating that the effects of ADMs on reward signaling processes may depend on whether a patient is exhibiting depression symptoms. Our findings suggest that depression suppresses the alpha and beta power response to both reward and emotional stimuli during working memory, indicating power attenuation in these frequency bands may contribute to emotional and cognitive depression symptoms.