Anhedonia Beyond Depressive Symptoms in Children and Adolescents With Conduct Disorder

Conduct Disorder (CD) is a common psychiatric disorder among children and adolescents and is characterized by a persistent pattern of behaviors that violate the rights of others or major age-appropriate social norms and rules. Although CD is traditionally classified as an externalizing disorder, evidence suggests that some affected adolescents also show abnormalities in emotional and motivational processing, particularly in reward and punishment responsiveness. Anhedonia, defined as reduced ability to experience pleasure, is traditionally considered a core symptom of depression but is increasingly recognized as a transdiagnostic construct that may reflect disturbances in reward processing. Importantly, altered reward responsiveness is not synonymous with clinical anhedonia, and clinically measured anhedonia in adolescents with CD remains insufficiently characterized. Depressive symptoms may contribute to anhedonia and therefore require assessment and statistical control. ADHD is also frequently comorbid with CD and may independently influence reward processing and motivation. Callous-Unemotional traits may additionally overlap with emotional blunting. Therefore, the present study will compare anhedonia in adolescents with CD with or without comorbid ADHD, and healthy controls, while accounting for depressive symptoms and relevant clinical covariates.