Childhood Neglect May Alter Pleasure Experience Later in Life

Young adults who experienced neglect as children may have more difficulty feeling pleasure than those who were abused, astudy inDepression& Anxiety suggests.“[Childhood trauma] exerts a lasting impact on cognition, emotion, and behavior in adulthood,” wrote Xiongzhao Zhu, Ph.D., of Central South University and colleagues. “Children who have experienced neglect may receive less attention and care from caregivers, resulting in less frequency of rece iving feedback related to rewards and thus affecting reward learning.”Anhedonia —the inability to feel pleasure or engage in enjoyable activities—is a common symptom in a variety of psychiatric illnesses, including major depressive disorder (MDD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Anhedonia may also point to those most likely to develop mental illness, the researchers noted.To examine the relationship between anhedonia and childhood trauma, Zhu and colleagues recruited patients with MDD and OCD from a psychology clinic at a Second Xiangya Hospital in China as well as university students from four universities in China.The participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, which assesses neglect (emotional and physical) and abuse (emotional, physical, and sexual), as well as multiple assessments that measured various aspects of anhedonia. The final sample (average age 22 years) included 305 patients with MDD, 152 patients with OCD, and 2,110 university students.Zhu and colleagues reported the following:C...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: child abuse child neglect childhood trauma Depression & Anxiety major depressive disorder obsessive-compulsive disorder Source Type: research