The ability of early changes in motivation to predict later antidepressant treatment response

Baseline values and early changes of emotional reactivity, cognitive speed, psychomotor function, motivation, and sensory perception have not been studied to any extent in unipolar depression, although they could help to characterize different dimensions of illness that are harder to capture by clinicians, give new insights on how patients improve, and offer new early clinical markers for later treatment response. About 1,565 adult outpatients with major depressive disorder receiving agomelatine completed the clinician-rated 16-item quick inventory of depressive symptoms, Clinical Global Impression, and Multidimensional Assessment of Thymic States (MAThyS) rating scales at inclusion, Week 2 and Week 6. The MAThyS includes a 20-item self-rated visual analog scale (from inhibition [0] to activation [10], with [5] representing the usual state) leading to five a priori dimensions (emotional reactivity, cognitive speed, psychomotor function, motivation, and sensory perception). All MAThyS dimension scores increased from inclusion to Week 2 and from inclusion to Week 6 (P