Scientists Have Discovered A New Therapy For Depression That Can Rewire Your Brain

Despite being among the most prevalent mental health disorders in the U.S., there are a lot of aspects about depression researchers are still working to uncover. Among these include causes and risk factors, as well as new treatments and therapies. One aspect of depression that often eludes explanation is anhedonia. While not exclusive to depression, anhedonia is common with this mental health disorder, and it often presents as an inability to experience joy, along with reduced ability to experience activities that might lead to joy. There's currently no single treatment or cure for depression-related anhedonia, but recent research in the realm of a therapy known as positive affect treatment points to potentially promising results in this area.

Positive affect treatment (PAT) itself was first described in 2019. Since then, a team composed of most of the same team of researchers conducted a randomized clinical trial to further investigate the impacts of this therapy. Specifically, they assessed data from 98 adults living with extreme anhedonia, depression, and anxiety after 15 weekly sessions. Based on findings published in JAMA Network Open in 2026, researchers concluded that PAT was significantly more effective than its counterpart negative affect treatment (NAT).

While the practice of NAT aims to reduce negative feelings and avoidance to rewire the way individuals might perceive threats in their everyday environments, PAT focuses more on helping patients envision joy through different types of cognitive practices that highlight optimism, a personality trait linked with living longer, as well as pleasure and loving-kindness. What's more, the authors noted that PAT improved symptoms of anhedonia much quicker than NAT approaches, especially those that persist despite overall treatment for depression.

While eliminating negative thoughts through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be an important part of therapy for mental health disorders, PAT's emphasis on building positivity stands in contrast to an overall inherent focus on negativity. In other words, focusing more on developing reward systems that could induce positive affect might benefit individuals experiencing anhedonia in depression much more than trying to get rid of threat sensitivities associated with negative affect. This also works directly against the human brain's tendency to dwell on negative experiences compared with their positive counterparts.

Through PAT, therapists work with clients to plan specific pleasure-inducing activities with anticipated positive rewards. The idea here is that the more rewards (feelings of joy) a person experiences, the more likely they are to continue this mindset and anticipate positive outcomes in the future. They can recommend short exercises, such as those that involve savoring small moments in the day, or perhaps scheduling activities that focus on pure joy instead of productivity. Self-compassion, loving-kindness, and gratitude exercises are also utilized to help gradually rewire the brain towards more positivity. While these types of exercises aren't completely novel on their own, the structured PAT approach and its capability of rewiring the brain is relatively new in the world of psychology (even amidst some of the surprising aspects of the brain's anatomy overall).

Despite the promising research highlighting PAT approaches in treating anhedonia in mental health disorders, there's still more to learn about its role in treating depression. Also, the authors from the aforementioned JAMA Network Open article note that one limitation of their research was the use of virtual sessions in PAT. They argue that future studies might assess the efficacy of PAT in virtual and in-person sessions and compare any differences between each. Thus, future clinical studies might reveal possible challenges individuals might experience when attending PAT with a therapist in-person.

Furthermore, since the experience with depression is highly individual (as with other mental health disorders), it's likely that PAT can be part of a multimodal treatment approach, rather than a standalone therapy. With the guidance of a clinical team, this could involve other types of therapies, such as CBT, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), and supportive therapy, to name a few. Medications such as serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) might also be considered. These may treat anhedonia as well as other symptoms of depression. Scientists are also learning more about dietary choices and how these affect our mood, such as an underrated spice that may help depression symptoms.