Direct sexual trauma associated with impaired reward response

Key takeaways:

• Compared with other trauma, direct sexual trauma was linked to lower anticipatory and consummatory reward responsiveness.
• This may help clinicians choose the appropriate treatments for this population.

WASHINGTON — People who directly experienced sexual trauma had lower reward responsiveness compared with those who experienced other types of trauma, according to a poster presented here.

“We know that direct exposure to trauma — whether that be a car accident, witnessing a death or experiencing some kind of violence — is associated with higher risk for and greater severity of PTSD,” Emma G. Balkind, BS, a first-year clinical PhD student at Suffolk University in Boston, told Healio. “We also know that sexual trauma — whether experiencing it, learning about it or witnessing it — is associated with greater risk for those same symptoms. We wanted to look closely at those two specific types and compare direct exposure to any general trauma vs. direct exposure to a sexual trauma to see if there is something unique in the form of sexual trauma that predicts impairments in reward responsivity.”

Balkind presented her poster at the Anxiety and Depression Association of America Conference.

Balkind and colleagues enrolled 223 undergraduate students with a history of trauma. At baseline, participants completed questionnaires to assess lifetime trauma exposure, PTSD, anhedonia and depression and anxiety symptoms. Over the next week, they completed a daily diary paradigm that evaluated anticipatory and consummatory reward responsiveness.

In total, 45 participants reported a history of sexual trauma and 178 reported another type of trauma.

Sexual trauma was associated with more severe PTSD (P < .001), anhedonia (P = .002), depression (P < .001) and anxiety (P < .001) compared with other types of trauma. Analyses of diary paradigm responses indicated that sexual trauma was associated with lower anticipatory (P = .018) and consummatory (P = .007) reward responsiveness compared with other trauma types.

“We looked specifically at whether this would impact interpersonal rewards, like how much you enjoy spending time with friends or family, and we didn’t find a unique association with interpersonal reward,” Balkind told Healio. “That’s surprising to me because that’s telling me that this is a global impairment.”

Moving forward, Balkind said research should delve into how other types of trauma and how time since trauma impacts reward responsiveness.