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Goreis A, Pfeffer B, Hajek Gross C, Klinger D, Oehlke SM, Zesch H, Claes L, Plener PL, Kothgassner OD. Attentional Biases and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Urges in Adolescents. JAMA Netw Open 2024; 7:e2422892. [PMID: 39023890 PMCID: PMC11258595 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.22892] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2024] [Accepted: 05/19/2024] [Indexed: 07/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Importance Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a significant clinical concern among adolescents. Exposure to NSSI-related content on social media platforms has been suspected to potentially act as a trigger for NSSI. Objective To use free-viewing eye-tracking and dot-probe paradigms to examine attentional bias and psychophysiological responses to NSSI-related pictorial and textual stimuli in adolescents with and without a history of NSSI. Design, Setting, and Participants From June 2022 to April 2023, adolescent participants in Vienna, Austria with and without a history of NSSI were exposed to NSSI-related stimuli in this nonrandomized controlled trial. Data were analyzed from December 2023 to January 2024. Exposure Exposure to NSSI-related stimuli. Main Outcomes and Measures During both tasks, subjective arousal, NSSI urges, and autonomic nervous system activity were assessed. Results A total of 50 adolescents in 2 groups, 25 who engaged in NSSI (mean [SD] age 15.86 [1.14] years; 19 female participants [76%]) and 25 who did not (mean [SD] age 16.40 [1.71] years; 19 female participants [76%]) were included. Adolescents with a history of NSSI-but not those without a history of NSSI-showed a clear attentional bias toward NSSI-related images during eye-tracking, as indicated by increased initial fixations (500 ms stimulus presentation mean difference, 28.64%; 95% CI, 18.31%-38.98%; P < .001; 1000 ms stimulus presentation mean difference, 18.50%; 95% CI, 9.05%-27.95%; P < .001) and longer fixation durations (500 ms mean difference, 29.51 ms; 95% CI, 4.3-54.72 ms; P < .001; 1000 ms mean difference, 39.83 ms; 95% CI, 6.90-72.76 ms; P < .001), regardless of stimulus duration. This bias was associated with a heightened urge to engage in NSSI (d = 1.22; 95% CI, 0.69-1.73; P < .001), a trend not seen in adolescents without a history of NSSI. Similarly, in the dot-probe task, only the NSSI group showed an attentional bias toward NSSI images but not toward trauma images, emphasizing the specificity of their attentional bias. Physiological measures revealed no significant differences, suggesting that viewing NSSI images is not associated with increased autonomic arousal. Textual NSSI content did not provoke an attentional bias or heighten NSSI urges in either group. Conclusions and Relevance In this nonrandomized controlled trial of 50 adolescents, results highlighted a specific attentional bias toward NSSI-related pictorial stimuli in adolescents with a history of NSSI, particularly a difficulty in disengaging from NSSI images. These findings contribute to understanding maladaptive information processing in NSSI and suggest implications for clinical management and cognitive models addressing NSSI triggers. Trial Registration German Clinical Trials Register identifier: DRKS00025905.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Goreis
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics (CCP), Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Bettina Pfeffer
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics (CCP), Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Carola Hajek Gross
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Diana Klinger
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics (CCP), Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Sofia M. Oehlke
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics (CCP), Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Heidi Zesch
- Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics (CCP), Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Laurence Claes
- Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
| | - Paul L. Plener
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics (CCP), Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
| | - Oswald D. Kothgassner
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics (CCP), Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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Silk JS, Sequeira SS, Jones NP, Lee KH, Dahl RE, Forbes EE, Ryan ND, Ladouceur CD. Subgenual Anterior Cingulate Cortex Reactivity to Rejection Vs. Acceptance Predicts Depressive Symptoms among Adolescents with an Anxiety History. JOURNAL OF CLINICAL CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHOLOGY : THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL FOR THE SOCIETY OF CLINICAL CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHOLOGY, AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, DIVISION 53 2023; 52:659-674. [PMID: 35072560 PMCID: PMC9308833 DOI: 10.1080/15374416.2021.2019048] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to examine whether neural sensitivity to negative peer evaluation conveys risk for depression among youth with a history of anxiety. We hypothesized that brain activation in regions that process affective salience in response to rejection, relative to acceptance, from virtual peers would predict depressive symptoms 1 year later and would be associated with ecological momentary assessment (EMA) reports of peer connectedness. METHOD Participants were 38 adolescents ages 11-16 (50% female) with a history of anxiety, recruited from a previous clinical trial. The study was a prospective naturalistic follow-up of depressive symptoms assessed 2 years (Wave 2) and 3 years (Wave 3) following treatment. At Wave 2, participants completed the Chatroom Interact Task during neuroimaging and 16 days of EMA. RESULTS Controlling for depressive and anxiety symptoms at Wave 2, subgenual anterior cingulate (sgACC; β = .39, p = .010) activation to peer rejection (vs. acceptance) predicted depressive symptoms at Wave 3. SgACC activation to rejection (vs. acceptance) was highly negatively correlated with EMA reports of connectedness with peers in daily life (r = - .71, p < .001). CONCLUSION Findings suggest that elevated sgACC activation to negative, relative to positive, peer evaluation may serve as a risk factor for depressive symptoms among youth with a history of anxiety, perhaps by promoting vigilance or reactivity to social evaluative threats. SgACC activation to simulated peer evaluation appears to have implications for understanding how adolescents experience their daily social environments in ways that could contribute to depressive symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Neil P Jones
- Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh
| | - Kyung Hwa Lee
- Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University College of Medicine
| | - Ronald E Dahl
- School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley
| | | | - Neal D Ryan
- Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh
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3
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Bylsma LM, Tan PZ, Silk JS, Forbes EE, McMakin DL, Dahl RE, Ryan ND, Ladouceur CD. The late positive potential during affective picture processing: Associations with daily life emotional functioning among adolescents with anxiety disorders. Int J Psychophysiol 2022; 182:70-80. [PMID: 36174791 PMCID: PMC10023197 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.09.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2021] [Revised: 09/04/2022] [Accepted: 09/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Pediatric anxiety disorders are characterized by potentiated threat responses and maladaptive emotion regulation (ER). The Late Positive Potential (LPP) is a neural index of heightened attention to emotional stimuli. Anxious individuals typically exhibit a larger LPP to unpleasant stimuli, but the LPP may also be blunted to unpleasant and pleasant stimuli for those with co-morbid depression. While a larger LPP is thought to reflect greater emotional reactivity, it is unknown to what extent variation in the LPP to laboratory stimuli corresponds to daily emotional functioning. We assessed the LPP in the laboratory in response to unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral images in combination with ecological momentary assessment of emotional reactivity and regulation in daily life among youth (9-14 years old; 55 % female) with anxiety disorders (ANX, N = 130) and no psychiatric diagnoses (ND, N = 47). We tested whether LPP amplitudes to unpleasant and pleasant stimuli (vs. neutral) are greater in ANX (vs. ND) youth and whether LPP amplitudes inversely correlate with co-morbid depression symptoms. We also examined associations between the LPP and daily life emotional functioning among ANX and ND youth. We found no group-by-valence effects on LPP amplitudes. Within ANX youth, higher depression symptoms were associated with smaller LPP amplitudes to unpleasant, but not pleasant, stimuli relative to neutral stimuli. Larger LPP amplitudes to emotional (relative to neutral) stimuli were correlated with use of specific ER strategies among ANX and ND youth but not emotional reactivity. While the LPP may reflect initial emotional reactivity to laboratory stimuli, it is associated with ER behaviors, and not emotional reactivity, in daily life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lauren M Bylsma
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States of America; Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, United States of America
| | - Patricia Z Tan
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California - Los Angeles School of Medicine, United States of America
| | - Jennifer S Silk
- Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, United States of America
| | - Erika E Forbes
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States of America; Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, United States of America
| | - Dana L McMakin
- Department of Psychology, Florida International University, United States of America
| | - Ronald E Dahl
- Department of Human Development, University of California, Berkeley, United States of America
| | - Neal D Ryan
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States of America
| | - Cecile D Ladouceur
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States of America; Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, United States of America.
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4
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Oar EL, Johnco CJ, Waters AM, Fardouly J, Forbes MK, Magson NR, Richardson CE, Rapee RM. Eye-tracking to assess anxiety-related attentional biases among a large sample of preadolescent children. Behav Res Ther 2022; 153:104079. [PMID: 35395478 DOI: 10.1016/j.brat.2022.104079] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2020] [Revised: 01/20/2022] [Accepted: 03/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
A considerable body of research in adults has demonstrated that anxiety disorders are characterised by attentional biases to threat. Findings in children have been inconsistent. The present study examined anxiety-related attention biases using eye tracking methodology in 463 preadolescents between 10 and 12 years of age, of whom 92 met criteria for a DSM-5 anxiety disorder and 371 did not. Preadolescent's gaze was recorded while they viewed adolescent face pairs depicting angry-neutral and happy-neutral expressions with each face pair presented for 5000 ms. No group differences were observed across any eye tracking indices including probability of first fixation direction, latency to first fixation, first fixation duration and dwell time. The sample overall showed faster initial attention towards threat cues, followed by a later broadening of attention away from threat. There is a need to identify the types of threats and the developmental period during which visual attention patterns of anxious and non-anxious youth diverge to inform more developmentally sensitive treatments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ella L Oar
- Centre for Emotional Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia.
| | - Carly J Johnco
- Centre for Emotional Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia
| | - Allison M Waters
- School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt Campus, Mount Gravatt, QLD, 4122, Australia
| | - Jasmine Fardouly
- Centre for Emotional Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia; School of Psychology, UNSW Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia
| | - Miriam K Forbes
- Centre for Emotional Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia
| | - Natasha R Magson
- Centre for Emotional Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia
| | - Cele E Richardson
- Centre for Emotional Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia; School of Psychological Science, Centre for Sleep Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia
| | - Ronald M Rapee
- Centre for Emotional Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia
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5
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Segal SC, Gobin KC. Threat-biased attention in childhood anxiety: A cognitive-affective developmental model. JOURNAL OF AFFECTIVE DISORDERS REPORTS 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jadr.2022.100315] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
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6
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Shi C, Taylor S, Witthöft M, Du X, Zhang T, Lu S, Ren Z. Attentional bias toward health-threat in health anxiety: a systematic review and three-level meta-analysis. Psychol Med 2022; 52:604-613. [PMID: 35341486 DOI: 10.1017/s0033291721005432] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Attentional bias toward health-threat may theoretically contribute to the development and maintenance of health anxiety, but the empirical findings have been controversial. This study aimed to synthesize and explore the heterogeneity in a health-threat related attentional bias of health-anxious individuals, and to determine the theoretical model that better represents the pattern of attentional bias in health anxiety. Four databases (Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus) were searched for relevant studies, with 17 articles (N = 1546) included for a qualitative review and 16 articles (18 studies) for a three-level meta-analysis (N = 1490). The meta-analytic results indicated that the health anxiety group, compared to the control group, showed significantly greater attentional bias toward health-threat (g = 0.256). Further analyses revealed that attentional bias type, paradigm, and stimuli type were significant moderators. Additionally, compared to the controls, health-anxious individuals displayed significantly greater attention maintenance (g = 0.327) but nonsignificant attention vigilance to health-threat (g = -0.116). Our results provide evidence for the attention maintenance model in health-anxious individuals. The implications for further research and treatment of elevated health anxiety in the context of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) were also discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Congrong Shi
- Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behaviour (Ministry of Education), Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
| | - Steven Taylor
- Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Michael Witthöft
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Experimental Psychopathology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany
| | - Xiayu Du
- Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behaviour (Ministry of Education), Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
| | - Tao Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behaviour (Ministry of Education), Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
| | - Shan Lu
- Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behaviour (Ministry of Education), Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
| | - Zhihong Ren
- Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behaviour (Ministry of Education), Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
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7
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Does irritability predict attention biases toward threat among clinically anxious youth? Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2022:10.1007/s00787-022-01954-3. [PMID: 35138476 DOI: 10.1007/s00787-022-01954-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2021] [Accepted: 01/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Aberrant threat processing is a known cognitive characteristic of anxiety disorders and irritability. Youth with more severe symptomatology show greater allocation of attention towards threat relative to neutral stimuli. Although irritability contributes to poorer outcomes among anxious youths, irritability has not been considered as a contributing factor to threat processing in anxiety disorders. Thus, the current study examined the role of irritability in predicting attention biases for threat among clinically anxious youth. Our study included 84 clinically anxious youth (M = 9.31 years old, SD = 2.44) who completed a dot-probe task to determine attention biases. Anxiety disorders were assessed using semi-structured diagnostic interviews. Well validated measures were used to assess the severity of anxiety and irritability symptoms via child- and parent-report, respectively. Findings indicated that more severe irritability predicted greater attention biases toward threat among clinically anxious youth, covarying for age, anxiety severity, and the number of comorbid diagnoses. At a trend-level, anxiety severity also predicted attention bias for threat. Among clinically anxious youth, irritability severity was the strongest predictor of attention bias toward threat. Findings point to the salience of irritability, and to some extent anxiety severity, in relation to threat processing among youth with clinical anxiety disorders.
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8
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Woody ML, Price RB, Amole M, Hutchinson E, Benoit Allen K, Silk JS. Using mobile eye-tracking technology to examine adolescent daughters' attention to maternal affect during a conflict discussion. Dev Psychobiol 2021; 63:e22024. [PMID: 32767376 PMCID: PMC7885127 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2020] [Revised: 06/16/2020] [Accepted: 07/05/2020] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
Attention to socio-emotional stimuli (i.e., affect-biased attention) is an integral component of emotion regulation and human communication. Given the strong link between maternal affect and adolescent behavior, maternal affect may be a critical influence on adolescent affect-biased attention during mother-child interaction. However, prior methodological constraints have precluded fine-grained examinations of factors such as maternal affect on adolescent attention during real-world social interaction. Therefore, this pilot study capitalized on previously validated technological advances by using mobile eye-tracking and facial affect coding software to quantify the influence of maternal affect on adolescents' attention to the mother during a conflict discussion. Results from 7,500 to 9,000 time points sampled for each mother-daughter dyad (n = 28) indicated that both negative and positive maternal affect, relative to neutral, elicited more adolescent attentional avoidance of the mother (ORs = 2.68-9.20), suggesting that typically developing adolescents may seek to avoid focusing on maternal affect of either valence during a conflict discussion. By examining the moment-to-moment association between in vivo displays of maternal affect and subsequent adolescent attention toward the mother's face, these results provide preliminary evidence that maternal affect moderates adolescent attention. Our findings are consistent with cross-species approach-avoidance models suggesting that offspring respond to affectively charged conversations with greater behavioral avoidance or deference.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Rebecca B. Price
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychiatry
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychology
| | | | | | | | - Jennifer S. Silk
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychiatry
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychology
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9
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Sequeira SL, Rosen DK, Silk JS, Hutchinson E, Allen KB, Jones NP, Price RB, Ladouceur CD. "Don't judge me!": Links between in vivo attention bias toward a potentially critical judge and fronto-amygdala functional connectivity during rejection in adolescent girls. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2021; 49:100960. [PMID: 33975229 PMCID: PMC8120940 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100960] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2020] [Revised: 04/06/2021] [Accepted: 04/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
We used innovative, ecologically valid eye-tracking and fMRI measures to examine social threat sensitivity in adolescent girls. Findings support the reliability of a novel in vivo attention bias task. Real-world attentional biases toward social threat correlated with amygdala-anterior PFC functional connectivity during social evaluation. Greater positive amygdala-anterior PFC connectivity during social evaluation could suggest disrupted prefrontal regulation of the amygdala. Disrupted prefrontal regulation of the amygdala could contribute to deployment of attention to social evaluative threat in daily life.
During adolescence, increases in social sensitivity, such as heightened attentional processing of social feedback, may be supported by developmental changes in neural circuitry involved in emotion regulation and cognitive control, including fronto-amygdala circuitry. Less negative fronto-amygdala circuitry during social threat processing may contribute to heightened attention to social threat in the environment. However, “real-world” implications of altered fronto-amygdala circuitry remain largely unknown. In this study, we used multiple novel methods, including an in vivo attention bias task implemented using mobile eye-tracking glasses and socially interactive fMRI task, to examine how functional connectivity between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex (PFC) during rejection and acceptance feedback from peers is associated with heightened attention towards potentially critical social evaluation in a real-world environment. Participants were 77 early adolescent girls (ages 11–13) oversampled for shy/fearful temperament. Results support the reliability of this in vivo attention task. Further, girls with more positive functional connectivity between the right amygdala and anterior PFC during both rejection and acceptance feedback attended more to potentially critical social evaluation during the attention task. Findings could suggest that dysfunction in prefrontal regulation of the amygdala’s response to salient social feedback supports heightened sensitivity to socially evaluative threat during adolescence.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Dana K Rosen
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychology, United States
| | - Jennifer S Silk
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychology, United States
| | - Emily Hutchinson
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychology, United States
| | | | - Neil P Jones
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychiatry, United States
| | - Rebecca B Price
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychiatry, United States
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10
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Abend R, Bajaj MA, Matsumoto C, Yetter M, Harrewijn A, Cardinale EM, Kircanski K, Lebowitz ER, Silverman WK, Bar-Haim Y, Lazarov A, Leibenluft E, Brotman M, Pine DS. Converging Multi-modal Evidence for Implicit Threat-Related Bias in Pediatric Anxiety Disorders. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 2020; 49:227-240. [PMID: 33095373 DOI: 10.1007/s10802-020-00712-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/23/2020] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
This report examines the relationship between pediatric anxiety disorders and implicit bias evoked by threats. To do so, the report uses two tasks that assess implicit bias to negative-valence faces, the first by eye-gaze and the second by measuring body-movement parameters. The report contrasts task performance in 51 treatment-seeking, medication-free pediatric patients with anxiety disorders and 36 healthy peers. Among these youth, 53 completed an eye-gaze task, 74 completed a body-movement task, and 40 completed both tasks. On the eye-gaze task, patients displayed longer gaze duration on negative relative to non-negative valence faces than healthy peers, F(1, 174) = 8.27, p = .005. In contrast, on the body-movement task, patients displayed a greater tendency to behaviorally avoid negative-valence faces than healthy peers, F(1, 72) = 4.68, p = .033. Finally, implicit bias measures on the two tasks were correlated, r(38) = .31, p = .049. In sum, we found an association between pediatric anxiety disorders and implicit threat bias on two tasks, one measuring eye-gaze and the other measuring whole-body movements. Converging evidence for implicit threat bias encourages future research using multiple tasks in anxiety.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rany Abend
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA.
| | - Mira A Bajaj
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
| | - Chika Matsumoto
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
| | - Marissa Yetter
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
| | - Anita Harrewijn
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
| | - Elise M Cardinale
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
| | - Katharina Kircanski
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
| | | | | | - Yair Bar-Haim
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Amit Lazarov
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Ellen Leibenluft
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
| | - Melissa Brotman
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
| | - Daniel S Pine
- Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bldg 15K, MSC-2670, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA
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11
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Attentional threat biases and their role in anxiety: A neurophysiological perspective. Int J Psychophysiol 2020; 153:148-158. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2020.05.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2019] [Revised: 05/07/2020] [Accepted: 05/11/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
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12
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Price RB, Beltz AM, Woody ML, Cummings L, Gilchrist D, Siegle GJ. Neural Connectivity Subtypes Predict Discrete Attentional Bias Profiles Among Heterogeneous Anxiety Patients. Clin Psychol Sci 2020; 8:491-505. [PMID: 33758682 PMCID: PMC7983837 DOI: 10.1177/2167702620906149] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
On average, anxious patients show altered attention to threat-including early vigilance towards threat and later avoidance of threat-accompanied by altered functional connectivity across brain regions. However, substantial heterogeneity within clinical, neural, and attentional features of anxiety is overlooked in typical group-level comparisons. We used a well-validated method for data-driven parsing of neural connectivity to reveal connectivity-based subgroups among 60 adults with transdiagnostic anxiety. Subgroups were externally compared on attentional patterns derived from independent behavioral measures. Two subgroups emerged. Subgroup A (68% of patients) showed stronger executive network influences on sensory processing regions and a paradigmatic "vigilance-avoidance" pattern on external behavioral measures. Subgroup B was defined by a larger number of limbic influences on sensory regions and exhibited a more atypical and inconsistent attentional profile. Neural connectivity-based categorization revealed an atypical, limbic-driven pattern of connectivity in a subset of anxious patients that generalized to atypical patterns of selective attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rebecca B. Price
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
| | | | - Mary L. Woody
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
| | - Logan Cummings
- Department of Psychology, Florida International University
| | | | - Greg J. Siegle
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
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