Reward sensitivity across the lifespan in males and females and its associations with psychopathology problems

Individual differences in reward sensitivity are associated with a wide range of psychiatric conditions. Still, current knowledge is fragmentary as most studies have focused on either one condition at a time or on specific age ranges and have not considered potential sex differences. Therefore, the present study investigated the normative patterns of reward sensitivity across the lifespan by sex and its associations with different psychopathology domains. For that, we used data from 37,737 subjects between four and 91 years old. The associations between reward sensitivity and psychopathology were examined using generalized additive models (GAMs). Reward sensitivity followed an overall decreasing pattern across the lifespan and was positively associated with all psychopathology domains tested. The effect of reward sensitivity differed across the lifespan and sexes for some psychopathology domains. The current study provides more insight on the lifespan development of reward sensitivity and how reward sensitivity is associated with psychopathology, while highlighting age, sex, and cross-domain differences