Investigation of reward learning and feedback sensitivity in non-clinical participants with a history of early life stress.

Early life stress (ELS) is an important risk factor for the development of depression. Impairments in reward learning and feedback sensitivity are suggested to be an intermediate phenotype in depression aetiology therefore we hypothesised that healthy adults with a history of ELS would exhibit reward processing deficits independent of any current depressive symptoms. We recruited 64 adults with high levels of ELS and no diagnosis of a current mental health disorder and 65 controls.