Appetitive and aversive motivation in depression: The temporal dynamics of task-elicited asymmetries in alpha oscillations

The capability model of alpha asymmetries posits that state emotional manipulations are a more powerful detector of depression-related motivational deficits than alpha activity at rest. The present study used a time-frequency approach to investigate the temporal dynamics of event-related changes in alpha power during passive viewing of emotional pictures in individuals with dysphoria (n = 23) and in individuals without dysphoria (n = 24). In the whole group, the processing of pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral pictures was associated with a decrease in event-related alpha power (i.e., alpha desynchronization) at centro-parietal and parietal scalp sites in the 538–1400 ms post-stimulus. The group with dysphoria revealed a smaller alpha desynchronization than the group without dysphoria in response to pleasant, but not neutral and unpleasant, stimuli at frontal, fronto-central and centro-parietal sites. Interestingly, at central and centro-parietal scalp sites, the difference between groups in response to pleasant stimuli was lateralized to the right hemisphere, whereas no clear lateralization was observed at frontal and fronto-central scalp sites. These findings suggest that decreased cortical activity (i.e., reduced alpha desynchronization) in a network involving bilateral frontal and right-lateralized parietal regions may provide a specific measure of deficits in approach-related motivation in depression.

subtends the propensity to approach or engage a stimulus, whether reduced left vs. right frontal activity indicates a reduction in approach behaviors and increased withdrawal motivation [21][22][23][24] . Unbalanced cortical activity between the frontal areas of the two hemispheres is typically measured as asymmetry in the alpha band, a brain rhythm associated with cortical inhibition 25 . Accordingly, a recent EEG study confirmed that alpha asymmetry measured from the scalp correlated with asymmetry in the activation of lateral mid-frontal regions of the brain, and that participants with a history of depressive episodes were characterized by less left relative to right cortical activity in these regions 26 .
So far, the vast majority of studies on frontal alpha asymmetry in depression have investigated reduced approach-related motivation at rest. This is consistent with a dispositional model of motivation and affective style, which proposes that individuals have a trait-like tendency to respond with either approach or withdrawal, irrespective of the specific demands of the situation 23 . Nonetheless, inconsistent results have emerged, raising criticisms about the effective value of resting frontal alpha asymmetry as a potential biomarker for depression (for a recent meta-analysis see van der Vinne et al. 27 ). Following these concerns, a capability model has been proposed, which states that individuals differ in their emotion regulatory abilities in situations with specific emotional charges 28 . In other words, reduced approach-related motivation in depression is thought to be more evident in response to emotional stimuli than at rest, since the emotional demands of the context highlight the motivational deficit, and reduce undesirable variance associated with resting states 25,28,29 .
To date, only few studies have started investigating alpha asymmetry in depression in emotion-or reward-related tasks 9,[29][30][31] . Moreover, two methodological shortcomings ought to be mentioned. First, EEG activity has typically been averaged over several seconds, providing no information regarding the time course of the response to emotional stimuli. This is surprising considering that emotional responding and regulation occur within a few hundred of millisecond, and considering that alpha asymmetry has been reported to burst transiently also at rest 32 . Furthermore, recent studies have analyzed alpha activity only at anterior scalp sites, even if asymmetry in the alpha band in depression has been reported also at posterior scalp sites, despite some exception 33 . In particular, depression (current or remitted) and familiarity for depression are characterized by a right temporo-parietal dysfunction, as indicated by increased right relative to left parietal alpha activity 19,33,34 . Decreased right parietal activity is thought to reflect reduced arousal and impaired processing of emotional stimuli 33,[35][36][37] , and may thus concur to emotional dysregulation in depression.
A time-frequency analysis of the EEG response to emotional stimuli allows to overcome most of these limitations. Importantly, frontal alpha response to emotional stimuli can be evaluated over time, overcoming the "static picture" provided by conventional fast Fourier transform (FFT) spectral analysis based on averaging procedures. Interestingly, this method has been proven successful in detecting transient motivational responses to phobic pictures in specific phobia 38 , as indicated by alpha power at frontal sites. More specifically, the time-frequency approach allows to assess how depression-related motivational disposition affects alpha power in response to emotional stimuli with an excellent temporal resolution (in the millisecond range).
The goal of the present study was to investigate motivational deficits in depression through the analysis of the time-frequency changes in response to emotional stimuli from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) library 39 , according to the capability model of alpha asymmetries. So far, affective pictures processing in a passive viewing task has been assessed mostly with regard to distinct components of the event-related potentials (ERPs). In particular, compared with low-arousing neutral stimuli, high-arousing pleasant and unpleasant stimuli typically elicit larger P3 and late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes over the centro-parietal regions in the 300-700 ms time window, which are thought to reflect attentional processing of emotional stimuli [40][41][42] . In the present study, pictures (pleasant, neutral and unpleasant) were selected to elicit robust P3/LPP complex, serving as an experimental manipulation check. The group with dysphoria was expected to show a smaller decrease in event-related alpha power (i.e., a reduced alpha desynchronization) in the left frontal and the right posterior regions in response to pleasant (but not neutral and unpleasant) pictures compared to controls, as a correlate of reduced approach-related motivation. Given that the negative potentiation model and the ECI model make two opposite predictions with respect to depression-related emotional reactivity in response to negative stimuli, no a priori hypothesis was formulated regarding the direction of changes in event-related alpha power in response to unpleasant pictures.

Methods
Participants. The method used to recruit participants was based on that described in a previous study by Messerotti Benvenuti et al. 10 Specifically, in order to preliminary identify participants with dysphoria, 197 undergraduate students from the University of Padua completed an online version of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II 43 ; Italian version by Ghisi et al. 44 ). The BDI-II is a reliable and valid self-report questionnaire that evaluates the severity of symptoms of depression in the past two weeks. Answers are given on a four-point (0-3) Likert scale and scores range from 0 to 63, with the higher scores indicating more severe depressive symptoms. In the Italian version, a score of 12 has been reported as the optimal cut-off score to discriminate individuals with and without depressive symptoms 44 . Participants scoring equal to or greater than 12 on the online version of BDI-II (n = 77) were invited to participate in the study and were administered a paper-and-pencil version of the BDI-II and the mood episode module (module A) of the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV Axis I (SCID-I 45 ; Italian version by Mazzi et al. 46 ) approximately one week after the initial screening. The module A of the SCID-I was administered to confirm the presence of dysphoria and to exclude individuals with major depression, dysthymia or bipolar disorder. The module A of the SCID-I was administered by a trained psychologist who had previous experience with administering structured clinical interviews. Twenty-three participants [22 females and 1 male; age, mean (M) = 21.9, standard deviation (SD) = 2.2; BDI-II score, M = 17.3, SD = 4.4], who scored equal to or greater than 12 on both versions of the BDI-II and had at least two current depressive symptoms, at least two weeks in duration, without meeting the diagnostic criteria for major depression, dysthymia or bipolar disorder, www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ were assigned to the group with dysphoria. In order to ensure separation between groups with and without dysphoria, we selected 24 individuals without dysphoria [23 female and 1 male; age, M = 22.0, SD = 1.9; BDI-II score, M = 2.6, SD = 1.9] with an online BDI-II score ≤8 (corresponding to the 45° percentile) and confirmed in the subsequent administration of the paper-and-pencil version of the BDI-II. Participants who scored between 9 and 11 either on the online or the paper-and-pencil BDI-II, or had at least one depressive symptom as evaluated by the SCID-I interview were excluded from the present study.
All the participants enrolled in the present study met the following inclusion criteria as assessed by an ad-hoc interview: 1) being medically healthy, and 2) being free of psychotropic medications. With respect to demographic variables, the two groups (with dysphoria, without dysphoria) did not differ in terms of gender (Fisher's exact test, p = 0.99) and age, F (1,45) = 0.05, p = 0.83, η 2 p = 0.00. The group with dysphoria showed significantly higher BDI-II scores than the group without dysphoria, F (1,45) = 226.69, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.83.
Ethics statement and informed consent. The present study was conducted with the adequate understanding and written consent of the participants in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was approved by the local Ethics Committee, University of Padua (prot. No. 2101), and written informed consent was obtained from each participant enrolled in the study.
Stimuli and procedure. Participants were presented seventy-two pictures selected from the IAPS 39 , divided into three categories: 24 pleasant (e.g., erotic scenes, sports), 24 neutral (e.g., neutral faces, household objects), and 24 unpleasant (e.g., attacking humans and animals). The pictures were selected on the basis of their standardized ratings of affective arousal and valence. The mean (SD) normative valence ratings were 7.0 (0.5), 4.9 (0.3) and 2.9 (0.7) for pleasant, neutral and unpleasant pictures, respectively. The mean (SD) normative arousal ratings were 6.5 (0.4), 2.9 (0.7) and 6.5 (0. Pictures were presented for 6,000 ms each in a semi-randomized sequence (i.e., no more than one stimulus in the same emotional condition had to be shown consecutively). Each picture was preceded by a 3,000-ms gray interval with a white fixation-cross placed centrally on the screen. In order to ensure that participants processed each picture's content, they were required to look at the central fixation-cross and keep their gaze on the center of the screen. An acoustic startle probe was presented at one of four intervals (i.e., 300, 1500, 3500 or 4500 ms after picture onset) on each trial, thus providing 6 data points for each time condition within each emotional category. The data analysis did not include trials on which a startle probe was delivered at 300 ms after pictures onset. Therefore, six stimuli for each emotional condition were excluded from the analysis. The startle reflex (and heart rate) data are not presented here. The inter-stimulus interval was randomly varied between 6,000 and 8,000 ms. The task was presented by a Pentium IV computer on a 19-in. computer screen, using E-prime 2.0 presentation software (Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh, PA, USA).
According to the procedure reported in a previous study by Messerotti Benvenuti et al. 10 , upon arrival at the laboratory, the participants were first administered a paper-and-pencil version of the BDI-II and the mood episode module (module A) of the SCID-I interview. Then, participants were seated 100 cm away from the computer monitor, in a dimly lit, sound-attenuated room. After the sensors were attached, six practice trials including two pleasant, two neutral, and two unpleasant pictures were provided. Then, each participant performed the emotional passive viewing task.
At the end of the passive viewing task, 36 pictures (12 for each emotional category) were presented again in a randomized sequence, and ratings of emotional valence and arousal were obtained using a two computerized 9-point Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) scales 47 . The SAM uses manikin figures for both valence and arousal dimensions. On the valence dimension, the SAM figures range from a frowning-unhappy figure (1, very unpleasant) to a smiling-happy figure (9, very pleasant). On the arousal dimension, the SAM figures range from a static-eyes-closed figure (1, very calm) to an active-wide-eyed figure (9, very aroused). Following completion of the self-evaluation of emotional valence and arousal, the participants were fully debriefed. The entire procedure lasted approximately 90 min.
Data preprocessing. The EEG signal was downsampled to 500 Hz and re-referenced offline to a linked mastoids montage. The EEG was filtered offline with a low-pass filter at 30 Hz and manually corrected for blink artifacts using independent component analysis (ICA) as implemented in EEGLAB 48 . Further processing was conducted in Brainstorm 49 . The EEG was then segmented into 4,000 epochs, from 2,000 ms before to 2,000 ms after stimulus onset, in order to prevent boundary effects. Each epoch was baseline-corrected by subtracting the mean pre-stimulus voltage between −252 ms and −52 ms. Then, segments containing residual artifacts exceeding www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ ±70 μV (peak-to-peak) were excluded. The artifact rejection led to an average (SD) acceptance for the ERP and for the time-frequency analyses of 17.0 (1.2) pleasant trials, 17.0 (1.1) neutral trials and 17.1 (1.0) unpleasant trials in the group with dysphoria, and of 16.6 (1.1) pleasant trials, 16.8 (1.2) neutral trials and 17.0 (0.9) unpleasant trials in the group without dysphoria. No significant differences between groups or among emotional conditions in the average acceptance of pleasant, neutral and unpleasant trials were noted (all ps > 0.25).

Event-related potentials (ERPs). ERPs were calculated by averaging EEG epochs in the time domain separately for each participant and emotional condition.
Time-frequency analysis. With respect to the time-frequency analysis, Morlet wavelet transformation on individual trials was applied for each 1 Hz frequency bin between 1 and 20 Hz, using a mother wavelet at 1 Hz with 2-s time resolution (as calculated by the full width at half maximum; FWHM). Time-frequency decompositions were then averaged for each subject and emotional condition, and the event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) was computed as the change in power expressed in decibels (dB) relative to the baseline (−500 to −52 ms) in each frequency bin at each time point. Then, data were grand averaged across participants with dysphoria and across participants without dysphoria for each emotional condition.
Statistical analysis. Self-report data. Separate mixed analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with Group (with dysphoria, without dysphoria) as a between-subjects factor, and Category (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant) as a within-subjects factor, were conducted on self-reported valence and arousal. The corrected p-values for effects involving within-subjects variables with more than two levels are reported together with the Greenhouse-Geisser epsilon (ε) and the uncorrected degrees of freedom. Significant main effects and/or interactions (p < 0.05) were followed by Tukey HSD post-hoc tests in order to correct for multiple comparisons. Cohen's d (absolute value) for relevant comparisons was calculated as a measure of the effect size. All effect sizes, corrected for the sample bias 50 , are reported with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and were considered significant if the CIs did not overlap zero.
EEG data: general method. In order to perform statistical analysis on EEG data, a cluster-based approach has been conducted to control over the type I error rate arising from multiple comparisons across electrodes and time points 51 . Statistical tests were run across electrodes and time points; the resulting values were thresholded and the differences among emotional conditions or groups were shuffled pseudo-randomly 2000 times. The maximal cluster-level statistics (i.e., the sum of values across contiguously significant electrodes and time points at the threshold level) were extracted for each shuffle to compute a 'null' distribution of effect sizes. For each significant cluster in the original (non-shuffled) data, it was computed the proportion of clusters in the null distribution whose statistics exceeded the one obtained for the cluster in question, corresponding to its cluster-corrected p-value. Clusters with a p corr < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
ERP data: Repeated measures ANOVAs over all electrodes and time-points in the −100 to 700 ms interval were employed to test differences in ERP amplitudes among emotional conditions (Category: pleasant, neutral, unpleasant), with the group variable collapsed. An initial conservative alpha of 0.001 was employed to threshold the matrices due to the expected large effect of emotional category on P3/LPP complex, in order to highlight the electrodes and time points where the difference was more prominent (note that this value does not affect the false alarm rate of the statistical test at the cluster-level 51 ).
When the time window was identified, a second cluster-based analysis was run to test the differences between groups within each emotion category. In this analysis, a two-tailed unpaired t-test on the ERP amplitude averaged over the significant time window was conducted across electrodes for each emotional condition.
Time-frequency data: A similar cluster-based analysis was conducted on event-related alpha power (8-13 Hz), with a −100-1400 ms time window and a p thresh = 0.05. Then, in order to perform analysis at the group level, the same cluster-based approach (statistic = one-tailed unpaired t-test) on the event-related alpha power averaged over the significant time points was conducted across electrodes for each emotional category. One-tailed t-test was used based on an a priori hypothesis about the direction of the difference between groups in event-related alpha power in response to pleasant stimuli.
In order to control for the specificity of the effects on alpha, the same statistical approach was conducted on event-related changes in delta (1-3 Hz), theta (4-7 Hz), and beta (14-20 Hz) power, using a two-tailed unpaired t-test.
Differences between groups for each emotional category. Unpaired t-test conducted on the P3/LPP amplitude averaged over the 400-604 ms time window, where the effect of emotion emerged in the previous analysis, did not reveal any significant cluster for the difference between the groups within each emotional condition.
Differences between groups in event-related alpha power for each emotional category. With respect to the differences between groups for each emotional condition in the 538-1400 ms time window, the cluster-based analysis on event-related alpha power showed a significant negative fronto-centro-parietal cluster in the pleasant condition (cluster t-value max = −29.24, p corr = 0.02, electrodes = FP1, FPz, FP2, F7, F3, Fz, F4, F8, FC5, FC1, FC2, FC6, C4, CP6), as shown in Fig. 3 (panel a). Specifically, the group without dysphoria revealed a larger decrease in event-related alpha power in response to pleasant stimuli than the group with dysphoria (Fig. 3, panels b,c). It is intriguing to note that at central and centro-parietal scalp sites, the difference between groups in response to pleasant stimuli was lateralized to the right hemisphere, whereas no lateralization was observed at frontal and fronto-central scalp sites (Fig. 3, panel a). It is also worth noting that no significant differences between groups in response to neutral and unpleasant stimuli were noted (Fig. 3, panel b).
Differences between groups in event-related delta, theta and beta power for each emotional category. Unpaired t-test conducted on event-related power of other EEG frequency bands averaged over the significant time windows (delta: 100-972 ms; theta: 186-724 ms; beta: 750-1064 ms), where the effect of emotion emerged in the ANOVAs, did not reveal any significant cluster for the difference between the groups within each emotional condition.

Discussion
The present study investigated motivational deficits in depression during the passive viewing of emotional pictures, according to the capability model of alpha asymmetries. A time-frequency approach was used to examine event-related changes in alpha power in individuals with dysphoria vs. healthy controls with high temporal resolution. Based on previous literature reporting reduced approach-related motivation in depression [10][11][12]33,35,37 , individuals with dysphoria were expected to show less alpha desynchronization in the left frontal and the right posterior regions in response to pleasant pictures compared to controls. www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ In line with our hypothesis, individuals with dysphoria showed less alpha desynchronization in response to pleasant stimuli than the group without dysphoria. The effect was evident between 538-1400 ms post-stimulus and was seen at frontal, fronto-central, central and centro-parietal scalp sites. It is important to note that event-related changes in alpha power in response to unpleasant and neutral stimuli were comparable between the two groups. In addition, no difference between groups emerged for delta, theta and beta power, indicating that the present findings were specific for alpha power. Accordingly, these results suggest that depression is characterized by reduced activation of the appetitive (approach) motivational system 8,10,11 .
However, only partially in line with our hypothesis, the difference between groups in response to pleasant stimuli was lateralized to the right hemisphere at centro-parietal scalp sites, whereas no evident lateralization was observed at frontal and fronto-central scalp sites. The present result reflects a reduced cortical activation over bilateral anterior and right-lateralized centro-parietal regions during the processing of pleasant stimuli in individuals with dysphoria as compared to controls. In turn, this suggests that a decreased cortical activation in a network involving bilateral frontal and right-lateralized parietal regions may provide a specific measure of deficits in the Approach Motivation construct within the Positive Valence Systems proposed by the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) 52 .
Along the same line of reasoning, the present results provide support for the capability model of individual differences in alpha asymmetry at posterior, but not at anterior scalp sites. It can be suggested that lateralized event-related alpha power at central and centro-parietal scalp sites is more likely to reflect depression-related deficits in the processing of motivationally relevant stimuli than frontal alpha asymmetry. However, the latter result is at odds with findings of previous studies reporting that frontal alpha asymmetry discriminates individuals with depression from healthy controls in approach-related and withdrawal-related conditions 29,30 . An explanation for www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ the discrepant findings may lie in the fact that changes in event-related alpha power were examined in the millisecond range, whereas other studies typically computed alpha activity (and its asymmetries) over longer periods of time 29 . It is worth noting that the effect reported here was robust because the cluster-based analysis allows to correct for multiple comparisons across electrodes and time points.
In the whole group, the present study showed greater alpha desynchronization in response to high-arousing emotional (pleasant and unpleasant) compared to low-arousing neutral stimuli in the 538-1400 ms time window, suggesting that decrease in event-related alpha power may reflect arousal dimension. This interpretation is consistent with recent findings showing a greater alpha desynchronization in response to high-arousing (i.e., erotic) rather than low-arousing (i.e., romantic) pleasant pictures between 600-1000 ms post-stimulus at anterior and posterior scalp sites 53 . Similarly, a decrease in event-related alpha power has been reported to be associated with higher arousal for both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli, with the largest alpha desynchronization occurring in response to erotic and mutilation pictures 54 . It has to be noted that results regarding changes in event-related alpha power in response to emotional stimuli have also reported null findings 55 or opposite effects (alpha synchronization 56,57 ). However, these studies varied remarkably in terms of critical methodological aspects such as central or lateralized presentation of the stimuli, data analysis technique to calculate alpha oscillations, limited number of sensors and picture exposure duration.
In addition, in the whole group ERP results showed the presence of the P3/LPP complex, with larger amplitude occurring in response to pleasant and unpleasant than neutral stimuli at centro-parietal and parietal scalp sites in the 400-604 ms time window. Replicating P3/LPP modulations to high-arousing emotional stimuli compared to low-arousing neutral stimuli with predicted polarity, topography and latency confirmed the effectiveness of the experimental manipulation. It is well-established that P3/LPP complex reflects continued allocation of attention to emotional stimuli and facilitated processing and encoding of motivationally relevant stimuli (for a review, see Lang & Bradley 40 ). Our data are in line with those of previous studies showing that LPP and alpha desynchronization may reflect similar processes 54 . However, it is worth noting that the group with dysphoria and the group without did not differ in P3/LPP amplitude in none of the three emotional conditions. In turn, our data suggest that alpha desynchronization over specific brain regions and at specific latencies may represent a more sensitive measure of depression-related motivational deficits than P3/LPP complex. This suggestion is consistent with the notion that event-related oscillations not only reflect stimulus-evoked oscillations similar to the ERPs but also induced oscillations, which are not phase-locked to the stimulus event. It is therefore possible that event-related oscillations may carry important information about emotional processing, which is not represented in the ERPs 58 . Further studies are needed to test differences in emotional processing reflected by ERP and time-frequency analyses. At the subjective level, self-report measures of valence and arousal did not differ between the group with dysphoria and the control group, in line with previous studies in participants with subclinical depressive symptoms 59,60 or in patients with clinically significant depression 61,62 (but see also Sloan et al. 63 ). An explanation for this null finding is that emotional experience was assessed according to a dimensional model of affective space instead of a discrete emotion model, which may best capture depression-related differences at the subjective level (see Rottenberg et al. 3 ). Otherwise, it can be suggested that decreased bilateral frontal and right-sided posterior activation may precede alterations in subjective reports of emotional experience and therefore provide an early measure of deficits in the appetitive motivational system in individuals with dysphoria.
With respect to clinical implications, the current data show that individuals with dysphoria are characterized by under-engagement of appetitive rather than over-engagement of aversive motivational system 7,10,64 . In line with this finding, there is recent evidence showing that depressed mood may improve through interventions specifically aimed at increasing appetitive motivation 65 . It can be also suggested that underactivation of the approach-related motivational system in at-risk individuals (e.g., with dysphoria) may be involved as a risk factor for the development of a full-blown depressive episode. Consistent with this suggestion, the clinical manifestation and the course of depression have been reported to be worsened by underactivation of the appetitive motivational system 66 . However, longitudinal studies are needed to test whether decreased approach-related motivational drive may play a role in the transition from dysphoria to major depression.
The present study suffers from some methodological shortcomings. First, the sample size included in this study was relatively small and, second, it was composed almost exclusively by females. Therefore, the current findings need to be replicated and extended to males in order to increase their generalizability. Third, whether participants included in the study met the criteria for major depression, dysthymia or bipolar disorder in the past was not investigated. Although having a history of major depression is unlikely to have affected the results obtained in the group with dysphoria because the effect of current and past depression on alpha asymmetry is expected to be the same, it might have partially confounded data obtained in healthy controls. It should be noted, however, that 12-month period prevalence of depression range from 1% to 3% in pre-pubertal children and post-pubertal adolescents 67 . According to this prevalence rate, and given that only university students were enrolled, the likelihood of having a history of clinically significant depression in participants assigned to healthy control group was very low. Therefore, the potential confounding effect of having a history of major depression was limited in the present study. Lastly, the module A of the SCID-I interview was administered by only one trained psychologist, which prevented us from evaluating the inter-rater reliability. Nonetheless, a high inter-rater reliability has been previously reported for the majority of the disorders assessed by the SCID-I interview 68 .
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating motivational deficits in depression using a time-frequency approach, according to the capability model of alpha asymmetries. The excellent temporal resolution of this approach gave us the opportunity to use discrete, short-lasting emotional stimuli needed to elicit a strong activation of the approach-and withdrawal-related motivational systems, as proposed by the capability model. In other words, the time-frequency approach allowed us to go beyond the measurement of a trait-like deficit in approach motivation, detailing how depressed mood affects transient motivational responses.