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Enhanced Neural Reactivity to Threatening Faces in Anxious Youth: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

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Abstract

Anxiety disorders are characterized by enhanced reactivity to threat, and event-related potentials (ERPs) are useful neural measures of the dynamics of threat processing. In particular, the late positive potential (LPP) is an ERP component that reflects sustained attention towards motivationally salient information. Previous studies in adults suggest that the LPP is enhanced to threatening stimuli in anxiety but blunted in depression; however, very little work has evaluated the LPP to threat in anxious youth. We measured the LPP during an emotional face-matching task in youth (age 7–19) with current anxiety disorders (n = 53) and healthy controls with no history of psychopathology (n = 37). We evaluated group differences, as well as the effect of depressive symptoms on the LPP. Youth with anxiety disorders exhibited enhanced LPPs to angry and fearful faces 1000–2000 ms after stimulus onset. Higher depressive symptoms were associated with reduced LPPs to angry faces across both groups. Enhanced LPPs to threatening faces were most apparent for social anxiety disorder, as opposed to generalized anxiety disorder or separation anxiety disorder. Results suggest the LPP may be a useful neural measure of threat reactivity in youth with anxiety disorders and highlight the importance of accounting for symptoms of both depression and anxiety when examining emotional processing.

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Notes

  1. Models were also evaluated excluding youth with depressive disorders and ADHD, and no substantive changes in results were observed.

  2. Because participants were recruited across two sites, we also evaluated the main model controlling for site. Effects of site on the LPP were not significant (ps > 0.18) and controlling for sites did not substantively change the results. In addition, the model was tested including sex as a between-subjects factor. Effects of sex on the LPP were not significant (ps > 0.29) and including sex did not change the overall findings.

  3. We also evaluated whether age moderated the effect of anxiety of the LPP to angry and fearful faces in the middle window. The age X anxiety group interactions were not significant (ps > 0.52).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant R01-MH086517 to Christopher S. Monk and K. Luan Phan.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to Autumn Kujawa.

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Kujawa, A., MacNamara, A., Fitzgerald, K.D. et al. Enhanced Neural Reactivity to Threatening Faces in Anxious Youth: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials. J Abnorm Child Psychol 43, 1493–1501 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-0029-4

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