Key result
Anhedonia is proposed as a common substrate for depression and anxiety, potentially explaining their high comorbidity and why intense pleasure could improve both conditions.
This theoretical paper proposes anhedonia as a shared underlying mechanism for comorbid depression and anxiety.
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Hypothesis-generating for anhedonia-targeted therapies in comorbid depression-anxiety; leaves open need for clinical validation before practice change.
Depression and anxiety are often comorbid, in up to 70% of cases, and the level of one or the other may fluctuate, leading now to a diagnosis of depression, now to a diagnosis of anxiety. For these reasons, and for the presence of many other common factors, it has been suggested that both are part of the same continuum of problems and that they have a common substrate. This paper proposes the possibility that anhedonia may be an important component of this possible common substrate, and it tries to identify the mechanism with which anhedonia could contribute to causing both depression and anxiety. It also proposes an explanation why an intense pleasure could improve both depression and anxiety.
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Luigi Grillo (2016) conducted a review in Depression and anxiety. Anhedonia was evaluated. Anhedonia is proposed as a common substrate for depression and anxiety, potentially explaining their high comorbidity and why intense pleasure could improve both conditions.
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