Not just harder: Compression of perceived effort in major depressive disorder is associated with symptom burden and altered decision-making

Background Motivational impairments are central to major depressive disorder (MDD), but inconsistent findings in decision-making have hampered understanding of their underlying mechanisms. While subjective reports consistently point to actions being experienced as harder, neuroscience studies have yet to identify a clear mechanism for altered processing of effort in MDD. Methods We investigated effort processing in people with an acute MDD episode. Inpatient (n = 50) and healthy controls (n = 94) completed an effort psychophysics task, requiring participants to rate physical effortful actions.

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