Dimensions of internalising symptoms are stable across early adolescence and predicted by executive functions: Longitudinal findings from the adolescent brain and cognitive development (ABCD) study

Abstract

Early adolescence is characterised by rapid changes in executive function and increased vulnerability to internalising difficulties. Using data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (ABCD) (N= 11,878), we first explored the dimensional structure of internalising symptoms from age 10 to 12 years and then examined cross-sectional and longitudinal links between these dimensions and executive function. Three aspects of executive function — inhibition, shifting/switching, and working memory — were measured at age 10 using tasks from the NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery. Exploratory factor analysis was used to delineate higher order dimensions from measures of internalising symptoms at age 10 and 12, and linear regression analysis was used to estimate the associations between factor scores on these dimensions and executive function at age 10. A four-factor solution best captured internalising symptoms at both time points, with an invariant factor structure. These dimensions corresponded to anxiety, depression, withdrawal, and somatic problems. Poor executive function at age 10 was associated with elevated symptoms of anxiety, depression, and withdrawal cross-sectionally, with evidence for unique contributions of inhibition and shifting. Longitudinal associations were more limited, with inhibition and working memory at age 10 predicting more severe withdrawal at age 12. These findings suggest that poor executive function at the start of adolescence may confer risk for internalising difficulties and, in particular, for the onset of social withdrawal. These associations, however, were moderate suggesting other factors not measured here, such as social and biological factors, are likely stronger indicators of risk for mental ill-health.

The relationship between cognitive and affective control and adolescent mental health

“…However, the evidence for an association between cognitive control problems and adolescent mental health problems, is inconsistent. Some studies have shown cross‐sectional and prospective associations between cognitive control problems and general vulnerability to psychopathology, as well as with internalizing and externalizing symptomatology specifically, in adolescents (e.g., Romer & Pizzagalli, 2021; Snyder et al., 2019; Vedechkina et al., 2023; White et al., 2017). A recent systematic review similarly concluded that cognitive control problems among young people were associated with both general psychopathology and internalizing and externalizing disorders (Lynch et al., 2021).…”