Great Expectations: A Critical Review of and Suggestions for the Study of Reward Processing as a Cause and Predictor of Depression

Both human and animal studies support the relationship between depression reward processing abnormalities, giving rise to expectation that neural signals of these processes may serve as biomarkers or mechanistic treatment targets. Given great promise this research line, we scrutinized those findings theoretical claims underlie them. To achieve this, applied framework provided by classical work on causality well contemporary approaches prediction. We identified a number conceptual, practical, analytical challenges line used preregistered meta-analysis quantify longitudinal associations abnormalities depression. also investigated impact measurement error reported data. found do not reach levels would be useful for clinical prediction, yet available evidence does preclude possible causal role in