1. Miriam Galindo
Children with Depression Exhibit
Blunted Response to Rewards

2. Introduction
 Dr. Miriam Galindo is a licensed clinical psychologist and
social worker with a private psychology practice in Irvine,
California. Dr. Miriam Galindo is experienced in multiple
areas, including child psychology.
A recent study published in the Journal of the American
Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry finds that
children with depression do not react to rewards the same
way other children do.
For people without depression, rewards often trigger
motivation, driving them to succeed, in hopes of getting
rewarded more. Research has already shown that this
typical response to rewards is blunted in adults and
teenagers with depression.
Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis
studied children with clinical depression between the ages
of 4 and 7 to determine how they react to rewards.

3. Children with Depression
 Using an EEG machine, the researchers instructed
children to play a video game of chance where one
option resulted in gaining points, while the other
resulted in losing them. Researchers promised to
reward children with a toy if they got enough points.
The results showed that depressed children exhibited
the same response as non-depressed children when
they lost points, but winning points did not have the
same effect. As with adults and teenagers with
depression, the children’s response to being awarded
points and the resulting reward were blunted.
The researchers summarize their work by calling a
blunted sensitivity to rewards a “red flag” for
depression when it comes to children.