Minireviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Jul 19, 2025; 15(7): 107721
Published online Jul 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i7.107721
Neuroimaging and neuroelectrophysiological features of music's effects on anhedonia in major depressive disorder: A minireview
Yi-Fan Sun, Qi Zhang, Jun Wang, Zhen-He Zhou
Yi-Fan Sun, Qi Zhang, Jun Wang, Zhen-He Zhou, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214151, Jiangsu Province, China
Co-corresponding authors: Jun Wang and Zhen-He Zhou.
Author contributions: Wang J and Zhou ZH contributed equally to this study as co-corresponding authors; Sun YF wrote the manuscript; Sun YF and Zhang Q performed the literature search; Wang J and Zhou ZH provided guidance on the manuscript preparation.
Supported by the Wuxi Municipal Health Commission Research Project Plan, No. Q202450; Wuxi Scientific and technological breakthrough of “Light of the Taihu Lake” (Basic Research), No. K20221039; and Top Talent Support Program for Young and Middle-aged People of Wuxi Health Committee, No. BJ2023086.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zhen-He Zhou, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, No. 156 Qianrong Road, Wuxi 214151, Jiangsu Province, China. zhouzh@jiangnan.edu.cn
Received: April 1, 2025
Revised: April 22, 2025
Accepted: June 4, 2025
Published online: July 19, 2025
Processing time: 103 Days and 18.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Although several reviews have explored the relationship between music and neural activity, there remains a notable gap in comprehensive reviews specifically examining the association of music with anhedonia in major depressive disorder (MDD). To the best of our knowledge, this minireview provides the first systematic synthesis of music’s effects on reward function in MDD from both neuroimaging and neuroelectrophysiological perspectives, while proposing novel directions for future research.