Impaired social learning in patients with major depressive disorder revealed by a reinforcement learning model

• Yuening Jin ^[1] ; Qinglin Gao ^[1] ; Yun Wang ^[3] ; Martin Dietz ^[2] ; Le Xiao ^[3] ; Yuyang Cai ^[1] ; Vibeke Bliksted ^[2] ; Yuan Zhou ^[1]
  1. [1] Chinese Academy of Sciences

     Chinese Academy of Sciences

     China

     
  2. [2] Aarhus University

     Aarhus University

     Dinamarca

     
  3. [3] The National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders & Beijing Key Laboratory of Mental Disorders, Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China

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• Localización: International journal of clinical and health psychology, ISSN 1697-2600, Vol. 23, Nº. 4, 2023, págs. 101-110
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Background/objective Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) have altered learning rates for rewards and losses in non-social learning paradigms. However, it is not well understood whether the ability to learn from social interactions is altered in MDD patients. Using reinforcement learning during the repeated Trust Game (rTG), we investigated how MDD patients learn to trust newly-met partners in MDD patients.

    Method Sixty-eight MDD patients and fifty-four controls each played as ‘investor’ and interacted with ten different partners. We manipulated both the level of trustworthiness by varying the chance of reciprocity (10, 30, 50, 70 and 90%) and reputation disclosure, where partners’ reputation was either pre-disclosed or hidden.

    Results Our reinforcement learning model revealed that MDD patients had significantly higher learning rates for losses than the controls in both the reputation disclosure and non-disclosure condition. The difference was larger when reputation was not disclosed than disclosed. We observed no difference in learning rates for gains in either condition.

    Conclusions Our findings highlight that abnormal learning for losses underlies the social learning process in MDD patients. This abnormality is higher when situational unpredictability is high versus low. Our findings provide novel insights into social rehabilitation of MDD.