Incentive salience: novel treatment strategies for major depression

This article proposes that a recent shift in our understanding of dopamine function may support translational research to target deficits in positive emotions and reward processing in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). We review how dopamine functions to modulate approach behaviors in response to positive incentives, and we describe the incentive salience hypothesis, which posits that dopamine primarily modulates “wanting,” or anticipatory reward, rather than “liking,” or subjective pleasure. Although the incentive salience hypothesis was first proposed to help explain how drugs of abuse may reinforce harmful behaviors in the absence of continued pleasure or “liking,” it may also provide a basis for understanding and developing new treatment approaches for MDD. Specifically, it provides a rationale for combining behaviorally activating psychotherapies and pro-dopaminergic agents to target impaired reward processing in MDD.