Puberty drives fear learning during adolescence

Stenson, Anaïs F.; Nugent, Nicole R.; Rooij, Sanne J.H. van; Minton, Sean; Compton, Alisha; Hinrichs, Rebecca; Jovanović, Tanja

doi:10.1111/desc.13000

Cited by 29 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Indeed, the imbalance model highlights the role of puberty in particular as a key measure associated with adolescent brain development ( Casey, 2015 ; Somerville et al, 2010 ). In line with this idea, pubertal development in particular has been found to be associated with both sensation seeking/reward sensitivity (e.g., Steinberg et al, 2008 ; Urošević et al, 2014 ) and anxiety/threat sensitivity (e.g., Nelson et al, 2005 ; Stenson et al, 2020 ), consistent with the findings related to sensation-seeking and worry in the current study. At the same time, further research is needed to help clarify the unique role of puberty in comparison to age (especially in light of their high correlation).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

An ERP investigation of children and adolescents’ sensitivity to wins and losses during a peer observation manipulation

Willoughby

Heffer

Noordt

et al. 2021

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this ERP P3 study was to test a peer observation manipulation (being observed by a peer versus being alone) on neural markers of attention to reward (win-feedback) and punishment (loss-feedback) during the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. Participants (126 children, 53 % male, 8–10 years; 196 early adolescents, 50 % male, 11–13 years; and 121 mid-adolescents, 52 % male, 14–16 years) were assessed by age group and pubertal status. Individual differences in how participants felt about being observed by a peer, and self-report personality factors, also were examined. Findings indicated that early and mid-adolescents (and individuals in mid-puberty and late-puberty) were sensitive to peer observation as both groups showed larger neural responses to loss-feedback in the peer condition than in the alone condition. Conversely, children (and individuals in pre- and early-puberty) were unaffected by peer observation. In addition, there clearly were individual differences in how rewarding versus anxiety-provoking participants found the peer experience. Early adolescents and mid-adolescents (and individuals in mid- and late-puberty) who reported feeling more anxious about the peer observation elicited larger neural responses to loss-feedback, and individuals in mid- and late-puberty in particular reported higher worry and lower sensation-seeking scores than those who reported a positive experience.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

An ERP investigation of children and adolescents’ sensitivity to wins and losses during a peer observation manipulation

Willoughby

Heffer

Noordt

et al. 2021

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Recent studies examining fear learning in youth (Michalska et al, 2016;Ryan et al, 2019;Shechner et al, 2015;Stenson et al, 2021) have found most children and adolescents can both acquire and extinguish fear in differential conditioning paradigms. However, few studies have examined other important aspects of fear learning (e.g., ROF, fear generalization; for example, see Pittig et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Return of fear following extinction in youth: An event‐related potential study

Danon-Kraun

Horovitz

Frenkel

et al. 2021

Developmental Psychobiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ability to learn to differentiate safety from danger matures gradually, particularly when such learning occurs over an extended time period. And yet, most research on fear learning examines the early phases of such learning and mainly in adults. The current study examined fear conditioning and extinction, as well as one form of extended learning, return of fear (ROF). Thirty-three typically developing children (age range: 7-14 years) completed fear conditioning and extinction; self-reports and psychophysiological indices were measured at this point. Two weeks later, children completed a ROF test (n = 23), and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Results indicated successful fear acquisition and extinction. Moreover, participants reported greater fear of the conditioned stimulus (CS+) than the safety stimulus (CS-) in the ROF test 2 weeks later. In electrophysiology data, ROF manifested as a larger late positive potential (LPP) response to the CS+ than the CS-. Finally, these differences in LPP responses were positively correlated with poorer extinction, as indicated by the GSR responses 2 weeks earlier. This is the first ERP study to demonstrate ROF in children. The LPP measure may index an interplay between inhibitory and excitatory brain-related processes underlying the long-term effects of fear learning.

show abstract

“…We hypothesized that ELS would be associated with accelerated pubertal timing for girls (e.g., Colich et al, 2020a), but given the mixed findings in boys we anticipated that this association might differ for boys (Semiz et al, 2009;Kogan et al, 2015;Johnson et al, 2018;Suglia et al, 2020). We also hypothesized that pubertal timing would be positively associated with anxiety symptoms given prior findings from multiple populations (e.g., Ullsperger and Nikolas, 2017) and from this cohort (Jovanovic et al, 2014;Stenson et al, 2021), and that this association might be stronger for girls than boys. Finally, given recent evidence that pubertal timing statistically mediated the association between ELS and psychopathology (Colich et al, 2020a) we anticipated that if our first two hypotheses were supported, that pubertal acceleration would partially statistically mediate the association between trauma and anxiety symptoms for girls.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Our study examines associations between trauma exposure, pubertal timing, and anxiety symptoms within a cross-sectional sample of 8-to 13-year-old Black children who are at elevated risk for psychopathology due to trauma exposure and low socioeconomic status (SES). Prior studies with this cohort have identified associations between trauma exposure and both biomarkers and symptoms of anxiety (Jovanovic et al, 2014;Stenson et al, 2021), therefore we chose to focus on this aspect of mental health. We hypothesized that ELS would be associated with accelerated pubertal timing for girls (e.g., Colich et al, 2020a), but given the mixed findings in boys we anticipated that this association might differ for boys (Semiz et al, 2009;Kogan et al, 2015;Johnson et al, 2018;Suglia et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-Specific Associations Between Trauma Exposure, Pubertal Timing, and Anxiety in Black Children

Stenson

Michopoulos

Stevens

et al. 2021

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent research has linked early life stress (ELS), such as trauma exposure, with early puberty. Early puberty has also been identified as a risk factor for poor mental health outcomes. However, these two paths have primarily been examined independently. In addition, more studies have examined these associations in girls than boys, and findings for boys remain mixed. We hypothesized that early puberty (relative to peers) would be positively associated with both prior trauma exposure and concurrent anxiety symptoms. We anticipated that these associations might differ by sex. We tested these hypotheses within a cross-sectional sample of 133 8- to 13-year-old Black girls and boys with trauma exposure. The association between trauma and accelerated pubertal timing was sex-specific: it was positive for girls and negative for boys. We stratified subsequent analyses by sex. Regression analyses indicated that early puberty relative to peers predicted more anxiety symptoms for girls but not boys, after accounting for trauma exposure. A statistical mediation analysis indicated that, for girls, the positive association between trauma exposure and anxiety was partially mediated by pubertal timing. These results indicate that trauma exposure may have sex-specific effects on pubertal timing and anxiety risk in Black children. We also found that, for girls, trauma may increase risk for adverse outcomes by prompting earlier puberty, which is linked to higher anxiety. These findings are consistent with cascading effects of trauma across development, and highlight the need for further study of sex-specific mechanisms.

show abstract

Puberty drives fear learning during adolescence

Abstract: Adolescence is a period of increased fear responsivity, but the mechanisms involved in this developmental shift have not been characterized (Dreyfuss et al.,

Cited by 29 publications

References 51 publications

An ERP investigation of children and adolescents’ sensitivity to wins and losses during a peer observation manipulation

An ERP investigation of children and adolescents’ sensitivity to wins and losses during a peer observation manipulation

Return of fear following extinction in youth: An event‐related potential study

Sex-Specific Associations Between Trauma Exposure, Pubertal Timing, and Anxiety in Black Children

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About