Aesthetic chills modulate reward learning in anhedonic depression

Abhinandan Jain; Felix Schoeller; Shiba Esfand; Jessica Duda; Kaylee Null; Nicco Reggente; Diego A Pizzagalli; Pattie Maes

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2024.10.038

Aesthetic chills modulate reward learning in anhedonic depression

J Affect Disord. 2024 Oct 11:370:9-17. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.10.038. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Abhinandan Jain¹, Felix Schoeller², Shiba Esfand³, Jessica Duda³, Kaylee Null³, Nicco Reggente⁴, Diego A Pizzagalli³, Pattie Maes⁵

Affiliations

¹ MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA, USA. Electronic address: abyjain@mit.edu.
² MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA, USA; Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies, Santa Monica, CA, USA. Electronic address: felixsch@mit.edu.
³ McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, MA, USA.
⁴ Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies, Santa Monica, CA, USA.
⁵ MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA, USA.

PMID: 39396678
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.10.038

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to examine the potential of experiencing aesthetic chills to enhance reward learning in individuals with elevated depressive symptoms, specifically anhedonia, by investigating the effect of chills on participants' ability to modulate behavior as a function of rewards.

Methods: A total of 103 participants with elevated depressive symptoms took part in the experiment. Among them, 59 participants had depressive symptoms (BDI ≥ 20), with 26 classified as "High Anhedonic" (HA) and 33 as "Low Anhedonic" (LA). Additionally, 39 participants without elevated depressive symptoms (BDI < 20 and SHAPs <32) were included as the control group. We utilized ChillsDB, an open-source database of validated audiovisual stimuli known to elicit chills in the US population.

Results: Anhedonic participants who experienced chills demonstrated a significant increase in response bias (p = .004) towards rewards compared to those who did not experience chills. Highlighting specificity, no significant difference in reward bias was observed among LA participants.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that the experience of chills has the potential to impact reward learning in anhedonic individuals, aligning with the known neurobiology of this phenomenon. These results highlight the potential of aesthetic chills as a novel approach to elicit and enhance positive affect in depressed populations.

Keywords: Aesthetic chills; Anhedonic depression; Chills response; Depression treatment; Hedonic tone; Positive affect; Probabilistic reward task; Reward learning.