Associations between Disorder-Specific Symptoms of Anxiety and Error-Monitoring Brain Activity in Young Children

Abstract

Anxiety disorders are among the earliest emerging disorders and most common mental health problem across the lifespan. A common characteristic of individuals with anxiety is poor attentional and cognitive control. Therefore, researchers are interested in how cognitive functioning relates to anxiety in young children. In particular, research has demonstrated associations between anxiety and electrophysiological markers of cognitive control skills such as the error-related negativity (ERN). The nature of the anxiety-ERN relationship is not well understood, however. The purpose of the present study was to examine: 1) the association between the ERN and diagnostically-defined symptoms of different anxiety disorders; and 2) the extent to which disorder-specific symptoms of anxiety moderated the association between ERN and behavioral performance on a Go/No-Go task in a sample of 139 children 5–8 years of age (70 females and 69 males). Results suggest that more separation anxiety disorder (SAD) symptoms are associated with a smaller ΔERN, even after controlling for other anxiety disorder symptoms. Children with more SAD symptoms showed higher error rates and failed to exhibit the expected association between ΔERN and behavioral performance, suggesting ineffective error-monitoring in young children with SAD problems.

The association between parenting and the error-related negativity across childhood and adolescence

“… 1 It should be noted that the relationship between the ERN and anxiety symptoms may change across development ( Ip et al, 2019 ; Lo et al, 2017 ; Meyer, 2017 ; Meyer et al, 2012 , 2018). However, because the current study focuses on older children and adolescents, we do not fully review this literature in the current manuscript …”

Error‐related brain activity and anxiety symptoms in youth with autism spectrum disorder

“…For example, Kujawa et al [] found a larger ERN in youth with SAD, but not in those with GAD, while the ERN relates to SAD and GAD in adults [Judah et al, ; Weinberg et al, ]. Interestingly, in young children (ages 5–8), a smaller ERN relates to greater separation anxiety symptoms [Lo et al, ], whereas in older youth (ages 10–17), a larger ERN relates to increased OCD symptoms [Carrasco et al, ], and more specifically, checking behaviors [Weinberg et al, ]. This developmental shift may be explained by a change from sensitivity to external (e.g., separating from the parent) to internal sources of threat [e.g., making a mistake in social situations, internal performance monitoring; Meyer, Hajcak, Glenn, & Klein, ; Weinberg et al, ].…”

Play Therapy for Children with Anxiety Disorders

“…The prevalence of mental disorders in children and adolescents in the world reaches 13.4%, with the highest percentage of anxiety disorders of 6.5% compared to other mental disorders (Polanczyk, Salum, Sugaya, Caye, & Rohde, 2015). The onset of this disorder occurs on average between the ages of 6 and 17 years old (Auerbach et al, 2018;Lo et al, 2017;Merikangas et al, 2010;Polanczyk et al, 2015). Anxiety disorders in children can occur in various forms, such as separation anxiety, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder with or without agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and specific phobias (Bulbena-Cabre et al, 2019;Canadian Mental Health Association, 2002;Rahmani & Moheb, 2010).…”