Memory and loss of pleasure (anhedonia)
Official title: Testing a Memory-Based Hypothesis for Anhedonia
Funded at University of California-Irvine · NIH-11258876 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at whether problems remembering how rewarding past experiences felt may help explain why adults with depression, PTSD, or schizophrenia stop enjoying things.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of California-Irvine NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Irvine, United States) |
| Project start | January 1, 2023 |
| Project end | October 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $728,546 |
| NIH project number | 5R01MH128306-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11258876 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are adults (21+) who experience clinically significant anhedonia as part of depression, schizophrenia, PTSD, or related conditions and can attend study visits.
✕Less likely to help
Children, people without experienced loss of pleasure, or those whose symptoms are unrelated to memory processes may not benefit directly from this project.
What this research studies
If you join, researchers will compare how adults with reduced ability to feel pleasure remember rewarding experiences versus adults without that problem. They will use memory and reward tasks, collect brain-related measures, and apply computational/AI approaches to link memory signals with pleasure responses. The team aims to define a biological signature of anhedonia by combining behavior, brain markers, and algorithmic analysis. Findings could clarify whether memory problems help drive the loss of pleasure across psychiatric conditions.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to clearer biological definitions of anhedonia that help improve diagnosis and point to targeted treatments.
How similar studies have gone: Previous research has suggested links between reward circuitry and memory in anhedonia, but this study takes a more focused, computational approach to test the memory-based idea.
Where this research is happening
-
University of California-Irvine
Irvine, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Yassa, Michael a — University of California-Irvine
- Study coordinator: Yassa, Michael a
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
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This project looks at whether memory problems help explain why adults with conditions like depression, PTSD, or schizophrenia lose interest in things they used to enjoy.
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.