Journal of affective disordersMay 8, 2017

Loss of pleasure linked to unusual connections between hearing and reward areas in new, untreated depression patients

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Apr 5, 2026

Abstract

First-episode drug-naive patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) show altered connectivity in the brain compared to healthy controls.

Reduced connectivity between the ventral caudate and brain regions such as the superior frontal gyrus, superior parietal lobule, and middle temporal gyrus was observed in MDD patients.
Increased connectivity was noted between the left superior temporal gyrus and the precuneus, angular gyrus, and cuneus in MDD patients.
Higher severity of anhedonia in MDD patients correlated with greater functional connectivity of the ventral caudate with the cuneus and middle temporal gyrus.
Findings suggest that the ventral caudate plays a significant role in the neurobiology of MDD.

Simplified

BACKGROUND: Recent empirical findings have suggested that imbalanced neural networks may underlie the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the contribution of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the caudate nucleus to its pathophysiology remains unclear.

METHODS: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) date were acquired from 40 patients with first-episode drug-naive MDD and 36 matched healthy controls during wakeful rest. We used whole-brain voxel-wise statistical maps to quantify within-group resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) and between-group differences of bilateral caudate and STG seeds.

RESULTS: Compared with healthy controls, first-episode MDD patients were found to have reduced connectivity between the ventral caudate and several brain regions including the superior frontal gyrus (SFG), the superior parietal lobule (SPL) and the middle temporal gyrus (MTG), as well as increased connectivity with the cuneus. We also found increased connectivity between the left STG and the precuneus, the angular gyrus and the cuneus. Moreover, we found that increased anhedonia severity was correlated with the magnitude of ventral caudate functional connectivity with the cuneus and the MTG in MDD patients.

LIMITATIONS: Due to our small sample size, we did not correct the statistical threshold in the correlation analyses between clinical variables and connectivity abnormalities.

CONCLUSIONS: The present study suggests that anhedonia is mainly associated with altered ventral caudate-cortical connectivity and highlights the importance of the ventral caudate in the neurobiology of MDD.

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Loss of pleasure linked to unusual connections between hearing and reward areas in new, untreated depression patients

Abstract

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