Depression Makes It Harder to Sidestep Unpleasant Events

Struggling to sidestep pain is part of the illness. A new study from the University of British Columbia shows that the more depressive symptoms young adults carry, the harder it is for them to learn how to actively avoid unpleasant events. Published in eNeuro, the research analyzed more than 450 participants using a behavioral task adapted from rodent studies and found a striking pattern: depression interferes not with avoidance overall, but specifically with the process of learning how to act to prevent something bad from happening.

When Avoidance Is More Than Avoidance

Most of us learn quickly to duck from harm. Yet in this experiment, that learning process was slower for participants with higher depression scores. They were asked to listen for sounds while watching visual cues. Certain cues warned of an aversive sound, and participants could avoid it either by pressing a key or by withholding a response. Active avoidance—taking an action to stop the sound—proved harder for those with more severe symptoms.

The sample was unusually large: 465 people spanning the spectrum from low to severe depression, assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory-II. The results were clear. Depressive symptoms correlated with impaired acquisition of active avoidance. But once the learning was complete, their performance matched that of less symptomatic peers. This suggests that the barrier lies in the learning curve itself, not in the capacity to avoid once the rules are known.

“Higher depressive scores were associated with poorer acquisition of active avoidance in undergraduates.” (Tomm et al., 2025, eNeuro)

Animal Models, Human Minds

The work is a direct translation of rodent experiments where scientists have long used avoidance behaviors to probe brain circuits. Here, the team, led by Ryan Tomm and colleagues, wanted to know whether the same principles apply to people living with depressive symptoms. The answer, they found, is yes, though with nuance. Avoidance itself is not uniformly impaired. What falters is the ability to override a natural tendency to hold back, to inhibit action, in situations where acting is the better way out.

Study 2, involving an additional 330 undergraduates, added reward-seeking to the mix. All participants, regardless of symptom severity, excelled at actively pursuing rewards. They also did better at inhibitory avoidance. This pattern reinforced the idea of a “prepotent response”—a default inclination to withhold action when faced with something aversive. Overcoming that inclination requires cognitive effort, and that is where depression exerts its weight.

Clinical Shadows

Why does this matter beyond the lab? Avoidance learning shapes daily life, from steering away from harmful social situations to managing chronic stressors. Difficulty with active avoidance could mean that people with depression remain caught in patterns of passivity, unable to take the very steps that might shield them from further harm. It deepens the cycle: unpleasant events feel inevitable because the act of escaping them is harder to learn.

“As we actively explore these questions, we hope our work will provide a deeper understanding of how depression shapes avoidance behavior across different contexts.” (Ryan Tomm, University of British Columbia)

Takeaway

Depression bends not only how people seek pleasure but also how they learn to avoid pain. This study bridges the gap between preclinical rodent models and human behavior, underscoring a specific bottleneck: active avoidance learning. For clinicians, it opens a window into designing interventions that target this bottleneck directly. For those living with depression, it offers a stark reminder that what looks like passivity may be something more structural—an altered learning process at the core of the illness.

Journal: eNeuro. DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0034-25.2025