Building upon epidemiologic work linking ELS to psychopathology (Green et al. 2010), the present results suggest that this association may be, at least in part, dependent upon individual differences in reward-related VS reactivity, and mediated through stress-related anhedonia. Consistent with literature suggesting that blunted behavioral and neural reward processing may confer vulnerability to transdiagnostic psychopathology (Feder et al. 2009; Geschwind et al. 2010), the present data suggest that ELS is only associated with increased anhedonic symptoms in individuals with blunted VS reactivity to reward. Prospective longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether such differences in VS reactivity to reward predate exposure to adversity, consistent with a rich literature suggesting that genetically conferred differences in reward responsiveness may leave individuals vulnerable to stress-related psychopathology (Myerson, 1922; Meehl, 1975; Klein, 1987; Bogdan et al. 2013). Alternatively, but not mutually exclusive, individuals who develop stress-related anhedonia may be more susceptible to stress-induced changes in reward-related VS response (Pizzagalli, 2014).
