(PS3-B33) Mothers' Punishment Learning Rate Predicts Offspring Anhedonia: A Multi-method Investigation of Intergenerational Risk

Depression and anhedonia are heritable and have substantial public health costs. Although the specific mechanisms underlying the heritability of depression and anhedonia are unclear, positive and negative valence systems might link maternal depression/anhedonia to offspring outcomes. Specifically, reward and punishment responsiveness and learning might help explain the intergenerational transmission of depression. The current study was designed to investigate the cross-sectional relations between multi-method markers of reward and punishment responsiveness (i.e., self-report, behavioral, neurophysiological) and depression and anhedonia in mothers and their offspring. A community sample of 40 mother-teen dyads were recruited. Maternal and teen depression were assessed utilizing the Depression and Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) and anhedonia was measured using the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS). The Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire (SPRSQ) was utilized as a self-report measure to assess reward and punishment responsiveness. Behavioral markers of reward and punishment responsiveness and learning were assessed on separate reward and punishment-based probabilistic reversal learning tasks. Reward positivity (RewP), a neurophysiological marker of reward responding, was indexed using continuous electroencephalogram captured while participants completed the Doors Task. Hierarchical linear regression was used to examine relations between markers of reward and punishment responsiveness in mothers, teens, and across generations. Moms (mean age = 44.5; SD = 6.82) and teens (mean age = 14.73; SD = 1.25; 52.5% female) primarily identified as white (80%). In mothers, self-reported responsiveness to punishment was positively related to depressive symptoms (p < .001, f² = .38). Self-reported responsiveness to punishment (p = .01, f² = .23) and reward responsiveness during the reward task (p = .01, f² = .24) were positively related to anhedonia in mothers. Teen RewP was negatively related to teen anhedonia (p = .04, f² = .14), and there were no significant predictors of teen depression. The only significant intergenerational finding was that mother’s punishment learning rate from the punishment task was positively related to teen anhedonia (p = .05, f² = .12). The results from the current study support an association between reinforcement-based responsiveness and learning and intergenerational depression and anhedonia. Additionally, these results highlight the importance of a multi-method approach to investigating transdiagnostic reward and punishment mechanisms across diagnostic classifications, ultimately elucidating how learning-based markers contribute to intergenerational risk.