Multimodal Differences in Effort-based Decision-Making in Depression

About this study

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a serious condition that causes long-term symptoms such as feeling sad, losing interest in activities, and having thoughts of self-harm. Difficulty in making an effort is a key factor in functional impairment. Current methods to evaluate this difficulty use clinical assessments and computer-based tasks, but there is a gap between the measurements and real-life behavior. To address this, the study team proposes creating an instrumented behavioral test, HORMES, to objectively assess reduced motivation during everyday activities and measure physiological responses. The study will examine differences in brain activity, autonomic system function, and metabolic energy expenditure in patients with major depression during a decision-making task that involves physical effort.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a debilitating neuropsychiatric condition characterized by multiple chronic symptoms, including sad mood, anhedonia, psychomotor symptoms, and suicidal thoughts. MDD induces significant personal and societal suffering, becoming the largest contributor to the overall disease burden in developed countries. There is clearly an urgent need to advance our understanding of MDD and its constituent symptoms. Of these, the inability to expend effort have proven harder to treat than mood-related symptoms and are key predictors of functional impairment and disease burden. The biological mechanisms that contribute to this impairment are not fully understood. Addressing this gap in knowledge will be helpful in developing therapy, including novel brain stimulation ther…

• Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute

  Atlanta, Georgia

  I'm interested

Only the research team can confirm whether you qualify. The intake questionnaire is the best way to find out.