INFLAMMATION, MOTIVATION,
& DOPAMINE
Prior work suggests that dopamine dysfunction may be implicated in motivational impairments in depression. If this is true, then it is important to ask why this might be the case. One candidate mechanism is inflammation. Through a combination of functional and neurochemical imaging in a sample of depressed patients with varying levels of inflammation, this project will determine the extent to which inflammation contributes to motivational symptoms and whether corticostriatal circuit function mediates this relationship.
The goal of this project is to help validate the immune system and corticostriatal reward circuits as important targets for the development of novel anti-inflammatory treatment and prevention strategies, which in turn can be used to personalize treatments for patients with high inflammation and motivational deficits. Importantly, we do not propose this model as a means of accounting for all forms of anhedonic symptoms; rather, we suggest this as a possible mechanism that may occur in the context of high inflammation and altered dopamine-dependent corticostriatal network functions.
Project Funding: NIH R01 (PI: Treadway)
