How Does Anhedonia Work?

Anhedonia is a mental health condition where normally pleasurable things, from music to food to conversation to touch, don't feel good anymore. Learn what we're still learning about it in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/mental-disorders/anhedonia.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. Even as the general public
has gained a better understanding of mental health issues like
depression and anxiety over recent years, some psychological symptoms remain
a mystery to many. A case in point, and hydonia

(00:24):
and haydonia refers to the absence of good feelings that
someone might expect from things and activities that they once enjoyed,
like a friendship, food, sex, or music. For the article,
this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke via
email with Los Angeles based psychotherapist Alyssa Mass m f T.
She said, and hedonia is the lack of experiencing joy

(00:47):
or pleasure. It's typically thought of as a symptom of
depression or dysthymia, though it can also exist separately from either.
Dysthymia is a mild but persistent, long term type of
depressive disorder. In addition to these mental health issues, antedonia
can accompany others like schizophrenia and orexia nervosa and substance

(01:09):
misuse disorders. It can also signal issues like Parkinson's disease.
Antedonia can be both social, meaning the person no longer
feels joy being around people or physical meaning sensations like touch,
say a hug can feel empty or food can taste bland.
The causes of antidonia can vary, and while it's associated

(01:31):
with depression, a person doesn't necessarily have to have depression
to have antedonia. Experts believe antedonia may be linked to
changes in brain activity and an inability to produce or
respond to a feel good hormone called dopamine. Some research
that's been performed with rats indicates that antedonia may be

(01:51):
tied to an overactive prefrontal cortex, impacting the dopamine neurons
and interfering with the pathways the control how and why
we seek out and experienced desire and rewards. Other research
indicates that other brain areas and structures like the amygdala,
which processes emotion, the striatum, which is associated with the

(02:12):
reward system, and the insula, which is connected to self
awareness and consciousness, might also be involved. While there's no
single way to treat antidonia, many mental health experts often
lean on strategies prescribed for depression, including talk therapy and
medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or s SR eyes,

(02:34):
which is a wide class of drugs, including common brand
names like prozac, lexapro, and zoloft. There is, however, evidence
to suggest that s SR eyes aren't extremely effective at
treating the antidonia that can come with depression. As a
potential alternative, study found that ketamine quote rapidly reduced the

(02:55):
levels of antdonia in people with treatment resistant bipolar disorder,
but more research is needed to understand the positive and
negative implications of these and other medications on the issue.
For now, mental health experts are continuing to incorporate antdonia
assessment into their work with clients and working with them

(03:15):
to find coping strategies. Mass said, in cases of depression
long or short term, I always screen for antdonia if
a client screens positive for it, and then it's really
about looking at everything that's going on and treating the
depression as a whole until there's relief from that. It's
impossible to tell if the antidonia is part of the

(03:36):
depression or something that exists on its own. If someone's
case history tells me they've never had antidonia until the
depression hit, in that case, it's likely more treatable than
if it had always existed and is more of a baseline.
Today's episode is based on the article and hadonia when

(03:57):
Nothing Feels Good Anymore on how stuff works dot Com.
Written by Michelle Konstantinovski. Brain Stuff is production of I
Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and
is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my
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