Aggression as an equifinal outcome of distinct neurocognitive and neuroaffective processes

Assessing Children's Autonomic Nervous System Activity During Structured Tasks: A Feasibility and Reliability Study in Ghana

The significance of physiological regulation in relation to behavioral and emotional regulation is well documented, but primarily in economically advantaged contexts. Few studies have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries. We investigated the feasibility and reliability of measuring autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity and behavior during challenge tasks in 30 children aged 8-10 years in Ghana during two visits, 1 week apart. Completeness of ANS data ranged from 80% to 100% across all tasks. There was low-to-moderate test-retest reliability of video mood induction (VMI) emotion ratings and balloon analog risk task (BART) pumps (r = 0.34-0.52). VMI elicited higher targeted emotion ratings in Visit 2 than Visit 1. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was higher, and pre-ejection period (PEP) was longer at Visit 2 than Visit 1 for baseline and both tasks. RSA was higher at baseline than during the VMI anger scene at Visit 1, whereas PEP was shorter at baseline than during all VMI emotion scenes at Visit 2. RSA was higher at baseline than during BART at both visits. In conclusion, ANS data collection within evocative and arousing challenge tasks was feasible in Ghana, and the tasks were generally reliable and effective in eliciting target emotions and risk-taking behavior in this sample.

Examining Conduct Problems in a Community Sample during Middle Childhood: The Role of Frontal EEG Asymmetry, Temperament, and Working Memory

Previous literature shows that aspects of temperament, executive functioning, and EEG frontal asymmetry are related to externalizing behaviors in children. We examined whether frontal EEG asymmetry measured at age 6 would moderate the impact of negative affectivity, attentional control, and working memory at age 6 on conduct problems at age 9. Behavioral tasks were given to assess children's attentional control and working memory. Parents completed questionnaires about their children's negative affectivity and conduct problems. Results showed that greater negative affectivity reported at age 6 predicted for more conduct problems reported at age 9, regardless of EEG frontal asymmetry. Lower levels of attentional control and working memory at age 6 predicted for more conduct problems reported at age 9 when children also exhibited greater left EEG frontal asymmetry, which has been linked to approach motivation. These findings illustrate the importance of assessing multiple intrinsic factors, both independent and interactive, that contribute to children's conduct problems.

Aggressive behaviors predict greater intraindividual reaction time variability in children: Evidence from cross-lagged panel models

Deficits in attentional control or inhibitory control are distinct features of childhood aggressive behaviors. Lower attentional control or inhibitory control is considered to predict more aggressive behaviors, while few studies have documented the possible predictive effects of aggressive behaviors on attentional control or inhibitory control. The present study examined the bidirectional relations between aggressive behaviors and both inhibitory control and attentional control in 169 Chinese primary school children (75 girls, Mage  = 7.15, SDage  = 0.33), annually for 3 years starting at age 7. The No-go accuracy on a Go/No-go task was used as the index of inhibitory control, and the intraindividual reaction time variability (IIRTV) of correct Go trials indicated attentional control. The aggressive behaviors subscale of the child behavior checklist-Chinese version was used to assess the children's aggressive behaviors. The results demonstrated a significant and stable predictive effect of previous aggressive behaviors on subsequent attentional control, with more aggressive behaviors predicting greater IIRTV at both the between-child and within-child levels. No significant effects of inhibitory control or attentional control on aggressive behaviors or sex-specific patterns were found. The findings suggest the negative impact of childhood aggressive behaviors on attentional control and underscore the importance of early prevention and intervention for childhood aggressive behaviors.

Integrating dynamic and developmental time scales: Emotion-specific autonomic coordination predicts baseline functioning over time

Autonomic nervous system activity flexibly shifts and modulates behavior at multiple time scales, with some work suggesting that patterns of short-term reactivity contribute to long-term developmental change. However, previous work has largely considered sympathetic and parasympathetic systems independently, even though both systems contribute dynamically to the regulation of physiological arousal. Using physiological data obtained from 313 children in kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade we examined whether within-person autonomic coordination during an emotion-inducing film task in kindergarten was associated with developmental change in resting autonomic activity. On average, these kindergarteners exhibited reciprocal coordination during the approach-oriented emotion (angry, happy) condition and a lack of coordination during the avoidance-oriented emotion (fear, sad) condition. Alignment with these patterns was associated with more typical autonomic development, specifically an increase in resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and a decrease in resting skin conductance (SCR) from kindergarten to 2nd grade; while lack of coordination during the approach condition was associated with a relatively delayed increase in resting RSA and a steeper decline in SCR, and reciprocal coordination during the avoidance condition was associated with a lack of RSA increase. Findings highlight the need for additional consideration of how moment-to-moment dynamics of autonomic coordination influence longer-term development, and suggest that early patterns of atypical arousal may portend dysregulation of developing physiological systems.

Childhood Antisocial Behavior: A Neurodevelopmental Problem

Early-onset disruptive, aggressive, and antisocial behavior is persistent, can become increasingly serious as children grow older, and is difficult to change. In 2007, our group proposed a theoretical model highlighting the interplay between neurobiological deficits and cognitive and emotional functioning as mediators of the link between genetic influences and early social adversity, on the one hand, and antisocial behavioral problems in childhood, on the other. In this article, we review the post-2007 evidence relevant to this model. We discuss research on genetics/epigenetics, stress/arousal regulation, and emotion and executive functioning in support of the argument that antisocial children, especially those who persist in engaging in antisocial behavior as they grow older, have a range of neuropsychological characteristics that are important in explaining individual differences in the severity and persistence of antisocial behavior. Current clinical practice tends not to acknowledge these individual neuropsychological risks factors or to target them for intervention. We argue that aggressive and disruptive behavior in childhood should be regarded as a neurodevelopmental problem and that intervening at the level of mediating neuropsychological processes represents a promising way forward in tackling these serious behavioral problems. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 73 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Developmental changes in external and internal performance monitoring across middle childhood: An ERP study

Performance monitoring is critical for learning and behavioral adaption and is supported by both externally and internally sourced information. Cross-sectional studies indicate an increase in internal error processing across childhood, suggesting a potential developmental transition from reliance on external information to reliance on internally developed models. However, little research has examined the association between these constructs longitudinally. Data from 339 children assessed annually from kindergarten to 2nd grade were examined to determine the developmental trajectory of ERP indices of performance monitoring, and whether the association between these indices changes across time. EEG data were recorded during an incentivized Go/No-Go task and ERP component amplitudes were extracted as peak measures at Fz. Despite small increases in magnitude, no significant changes were observed in any of the ERPs. Multi-level regression analyses indicated that in kindergarten a more negative feedback-related negativity (FRN) was associated with a more negative error-related negativity (ERN) and a more negative error positivity (Pe). Further, the association between the FRN and Pe changed over time, such that in 2nd grade the FRN and Pe decoupled from one another and were no longer associated. These results suggest that the development of performance monitoring through middle childhood may be a phasic process. More specifically, matured external feedback monitoring processes may first facilitate the development of conscious error recognition, and then the development of internal error monitoring processes. Once internal models of error monitoring are well-established, children may then reduce their utilization of external feedback.

Association Between Dynamic Parasympathetic Reactivity to Frustration and Children's Social Success with Peers in Kindergarten

The inability to regulate affective arousal in the context of frustration may jeopardize children's ability to form successful friendships, especially as new peer groups are formed during the transition to kindergarten. While substantial research has utilized teacher reports of children's socioemotional behavior, there is less empirical evidence on the peer perspective. The present study utilized data from n = 235 kindergarteners (54% high in disruptive behavior) recruited for a multicomponent intervention. We examined whether physiological reactivity to frustration was associated with children's social success. Peer nominations of liking or disliking to play with the child were used to compute a social preference score, where negative values reflect greater rejection than acceptance. Multilevel growth modeling was employed to capture changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity across a manipulated inhibitory control task administered in 3 blocks, with differing algorithms embedded to induce affect: points were earned in the 1st and 3rd blocks (reward) and lost during the 2nd block (frustration). Groups did not differ in RSA reactivity during the 1st block, but children who experience greater peer rejection showed significant decreases in RSA (increases in arousal) across frustration. This increased arousal persisted across the 3rd block despite the reinstatement of reward, indicating a greater degree of reactivity and a lack of recovery relative to peer-accepted children. Teacher screenings of disruptive behavior only partially aligned with peer ratings of acceptance, highlighting the benefits of leveraging peer report to capture regulatory functioning and identify children for intervention recruitment.

Association between EEG asymmetry and the error-related negativity across middle childhood

Resting frontal EEG alpha asymmetry has been extensively examined as a marker of motivational disposition. Recent research has examined how this trait-level marker of motivation influences an individual's internal error monitoring (indexed by the error-related negativity; ERN), with mixed findings as to whether more negative ERNs are associated with greater left or right alpha power. Data from 339 children who completed an incentivized Go/No-Go task annually from Kindergarten through 2nd grade were examined for an association between ERN amplitude and EEG asymmetry, and for whether the association was developmentally stable. Results indicate an association between left-dominant activation and a more negative amplitude in Kindergarten, with an inversion of this association emerging by 2nd grade, such that a more negative ERNs were associated with right-dominant activation. We suggest that the association between EEG asymmetry and ERN amplitude is likely modulated by task condition (e.g., incentivization) and experience over time (e.g., habituation).

The reliability of visual ERP components in children across the first year of school

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are increasingly used as neurophysiological markers of perceptual and cognitive processes conveying risk for psychopathology. However, little is known about the reliability of ERP components during childhood, a time of substantial brain maturation. In the present study, we examine the early visual ERP components (P1, N170, VPP), frequently examined as indicators of attentional bias, for 110 children at kindergarten (T1) and first grade (T2). Children performed a Go/Nogo task at both time points, with exact stimuli changed to reduce habituation. All components showed increases in absolute amplitude and the P1 and VPP also showed decreases in latency. Retest reliability across time was good to very good for amplitude measures (Pearson rs ranging from .54 for N170 to .69 for P1) and low to very good for latencies (rs from .34 for P1 to .60 for N170), despite the change in visual stimuli. Although there was some evidence of moderation by sex, early visual ERP components appear to be a reliable measure of individual differences in attention processing in middle childhood. This has implications for the use of early visual ERP components as trait-like markers for individual differences in perceptual processes in developmental research.

Cortical and affective regulation of autonomic coordination

Although anatomical research clearly demonstrates the ability of the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system to independently influence cardiac function, little research has examined whether coordinated activation is typical or whether the extent of autonomic coordination is situationally dependent. This study examines the extent of coordination between sympathetic (cardiac pre-ejection period: PEP) and parasympathetic (respiratory sinus arrhythmia: RSA) influences on the cardiac function to determine whether coordination is a trait-like between-person characteristic or a state-varying within-person phenomenon, and if so, whether variability in autonomic coordination is modulated by cognitive (P3b amplitude) or affective state. Kindergarten-aged children (n = 257) completed a go/no-go task administered in blocks designed to induce affective states through the delivery of reward (Blocks 1 and 3) and frustration (Block 2). Results from multilevel models that allowed for the simultaneous examination of between-person and within-person associations in the repeated measures data suggested that (a) children with higher overall RSA also tended to have higher overall PEP; (b) at within-person level, RSA and PEP tended to be reciprocally coordinated; but that (c) when frustration invokes cognitive disengagement, coordination between parasympathetic and sympathetic systems demonstrate compensatory coordination. These findings highlight the extent to which the coordination of autonomic systems is a dynamic state-like phenomenon rather than a trait-like individual differences characteristic.

Neurophysiological evidence for distinct biases in emotional face processing associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in children

Attentional bias to threat has been implicated in both internalizing and externalizing disorders. This study utilizes event-related potentials to examine early stages of perceptual attention to threatening (angry or fearful) versus neutral faces among a sample of 200 children ages 6-8 years from a low-income, urban community. Although both internalizing and externalizing symptoms were associated with processing biases, the nature of the bias differed between these two symptom domains. Internalizing symptoms were associated with heightened early attentional selection (P1) and later perceptual processing (P2) of fearful faces. In contrast, externalizing symptoms were associated with reduced early attentional selection (P1) of fearful faces and enhanced perceptual processing (P2) of neutral faces, possibly indicative of a hostile interpretation bias for ambiguous social cues. These results provide insight into the distinct cognitive-affective processes that may contribute to the etiology and maintenance of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology.

Developmental dynamics of autonomic function in childhood

There is a paucity of developmental data examining the stability of autonomic function during childhood, and even less is known regarding the extent of coordination between autonomic branches. To address this, autonomic measures of sympathetic (cardiac pre-ejection period, PEP; electrodermal activity, and EDA) and parasympathetic (respiratory sinus arrhythmia and RSA) function were collected from 339 children annually from kindergarten to second grade. Physiology was quantified into 31 epochs 30 s in length, across a series of baselines and emotion-inducing films. Rank-order stability was observed for all three indices, but was higher for cardiac than electrodermal measures. A series of multilevel models was used to identify the proportion of variance in psychophysiological function attributable to the individual (trait), visit (potential developmental change), or epoch (reactivity to task). Both PEP and RSA had sizeable components of individual-level variance, with PEP showing very small variance attributable to experimental task. In contrast, variance in EDA was largely attributable to task epoch. Variance decompositions of the parasympathetic-sympathetic coordination (e.g., RSA-EDA) suggest that the branches of the autonomic system are prototypically cooperative, but evidence did not indicate traitlike stability or linear developmental change. The extent of coordination was moderated by emotional context, indicating that autonomic coordination varies dynamically within individuals. These findings have implications for future work attempting to identify the contextual, experiential, and demographic factors that modulate developmental trajectories of autonomic function and coordination, and for examination of how developmental changes in autonomic psychophysiology are related to or predict behavioral trajectories across a range of psychological domains.

The Role of Language Skill in Child Psychopathology: Implications for Intervention in the Early Years

In this narrative review, we suggest that children's language skill should be targeted in clinical interventions for children with emotional and behavioral difficulties in the preschool years. We propose that language skill predicts childhood emotional and behavioral problems and this relationship may be mediated by children's self-regulation and emotion understanding skills. In the first sections, we review recent high-quality longitudinal studies which together demonstrate that that children's early language skill predicts: (1) emotional and behavioral problems, and this relationship is stronger than the reverse pattern; (2) self-regulation skill; this pattern may be stronger than the reverse pattern but moderated by child age. Findings also suggest that self-regulation skill mediates the relation between early language skill and children's emotional and behavioral problems. There is insufficient evidence regarding the mediating role of emotion understanding. In subsequent sections, we review evidence demonstrating that: (1) particular kinds of developmentally targeted parent-child conversations play a vital role in the development of language skill, and (2) some current clinical interventions, directly or indirectly, have a beneficial impact on children's vocabulary and narrative skills, but most approaches are ad hoc. Targeting language via parent-child conversation has the potential to improve the outcomes of current clinical interventions in the preschool years.

Emotional Reactivity, Behavior Problems, and Social Adjustment at School Entry in a High-risk Sample

Prior research suggests that heightened emotional reactivity to emotionally distressing stimuli may be associated with elevated internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and contribute to impaired social functioning. These links were explored in a sample of 169 economically-disadvantaged kindergarteners (66 % male; 68 % African American, 22 % Hispanic, 10 % Caucasian) oversampled for elevated aggression. Physiological measures of emotional reactivity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA], heart rate [HR], and cardiac pre-ejection period [PEP]) were collected, and teachers and peers provided ratings of externalizing and internalizing behavior, prosocial competence, and peer rejection. RSA withdrawal, HR reactivity, and PEP shortening (indicating increased arousal) were correlated with reduced prosocial competence, and RSA withdrawal and HR reactivity were correlated with elevated internalizing problems. HR reactivity was also correlated with elevated externalizing problems and peer rejection. Linear regressions controlling for age, sex, race, verbal proficiency, and resting physiology showed that HR reactivity explained unique variance in both teacher-rated prosocial competence and peer rejection, and contributed indirectly to these outcomes through pathways mediated by internalizing and externalizing problems. A trend also emerged for the unique contribution of PEP reactivity to peer-rated prosocial competence. These findings support the contribution of emotional reactivity to behavior problems and social adjustment among children living in disadvantaged urban contexts, and further suggest that elevated reactivity may confer risk for social difficulties in ways that overlap only partially with internalizing and externalizing behavior problems.

Diversity and representation: Key issues for psychophysiological science

This Special Issue is devoted to the illustration and discussion of three key demographic variables (sex/gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) that have been shown to moderate associations between psychophysiological processes and behavior. The introduction to the issue discusses the role of phenotypic plasticity in the emergence of different neural processes that achieve the same behavioral outcome, with emphasis on how these relatively stable developmental contexts affect brain/behavior associations without necessarily resulting in difference in behavior. These findings have profound significance for the implications of generalization and call into question the presumption that diverse samples produce an average result that is appropriately reflective of the individuals themselves. Increasing diversity within psychophysiological research is critical in elucidating mechanisms by which the human brain can accomplish cognitive and affective behaviors. This article further examines the logistical and ethical challenges faced in achieving this goal.

The dynamics of internalizing and externalizing comorbidity across the early school years

High rates of comorbidity are observed between internalizing and externalizing problems, yet the developmental dynamics of comorbid symptom presentations are not yet well understood. This study explored the developmental course of latent profiles of internalizing and externalizing symptoms across kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. The sample consisted of 336 children from an urban, low-income community, selected based on relatively high (61%) or low (39%) aggressive/oppositional behavior problems at school entry (64% male; 70% African American, 20% Hispanic). Teachers reported on children's symptoms in each year. An exploratory latent profile analysis of children's scores on aggression/oppositionality, hyperactivity/inattention, anxiety, and social withdrawal symptom factors revealed four latent symptom profiles: comorbid (48% of the sample in each year), internalizing (19%-23%), externalizing (21%-22%), and well-adjusted (7%-11%). The developmental course of these symptom profiles was examined using a latent transition analysis, which revealed remarkably high continuity in the comorbid symptom profile (89% from one year to the next) and moderately high continuity in both the internalizing and externalizing profiles (80% and 71%, respectively). Internalizing children had a 20% probability of remitting to the well-adjusted profile by the following year, whereas externalizing children had a 25% probability of transitioning to the comorbid profile. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a common vulnerability factor contributes to developmentally stable internalizing-externalizing comorbidity, while also suggesting that some children with externalizing symptoms are at risk for subsequently accumulating internalizing symptoms.

Variability in emotional/behavioral problems in boys with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder: the role of arousal

It is often reported that children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or conduct disorder (CD) are under-aroused. However, the evidence is mixed, with some children with ODD/CD displaying high arousal. This has led to the hypothesis that different profiles of arousal dysfunction may exist within children with ODD/CD. This knowledge could explain variability within children with ODD/CD, both in terms of specific types of aggression as well as comorbid symptoms (e.g., other emotional/behavioral problems). We measured heart rate variability (HRV), heart rate (HR) and skin conductance level (SCL) during rest and stress, and obtained parent and teacher reports of aggression, anxiety, attention problems and autism traits in a sample of 66 ODD/CD and 36 non-clinical boys (aged 8-12 years). The ODD/CD group scored significantly higher on aggression, anxiety, attention problems and autism traits than the controls; boys with ODD/CD also had higher resting HRs than controls, but HR stress, HRV and SCL did not differ. Hierarchical regressions showed different physiological profiles in subgroups of boys with ODD/CD based on their type of aggression; a pattern of high baseline HR and SCL, but low stress HRV was related to reactive aggression, whereas the opposite physiological pattern (low HR, low stress SCL, high stress HRV) was related to proactive aggression. Furthermore, high stress SCL was related to anxiety symptoms, whereas low stress SCL was related to attention problems. These findings are important because they indicate heterogeneity within boys with ODD/CD and highlight the importance of using physiology to differentiate boys with different ODD/CD subtypes.

How does reactivity to frustrative non-reward increase risk for externalizing symptoms?

Frustration is a normative affective response with an adaptive value in motivating behavior. However, excessive anger in response to frustration characterizes multiple forms of externalizing psychopathology. How a given trait subserves both normative and pathological behavioral profiles is not entirely clear. One hypothesis is that the magnitude of response to frustration differentiates normative versus maladaptive reactivity. Disproportionate increases in arousal in response to frustration may exceed normal regulatory capacity, thus precipitating aggressive or antisocial responses. Alternatively, pathology may arise when reactivity to frustration interferes with other cognitive systems, impairing the individual's ability to respond to frustration adaptively. In this paper we examine these two hypotheses in a sample of kindergarten children. First we examine whether children with conduct problems (CP; n=105) are differentiated from comparison children (n=135) with regard to magnitude of autonomic reactivity (cardiac and electrodermal) across a task that includes a frustrative non-reward block flanked by two reward blocks. Second we examine whether cognitive processing, as reflected by magnitude of the P3b brain response, is disrupted in the context of frustrative non-reward. Results indicate no differences in skin conductance, but a greater increase in heart rate during the frustration block among children in the CP group. Additionally, the CP group was characterized by a pronounced decrement in P3b amplitude during the frustration condition compared with both reward conditions. No interaction between cardiac and P3b measures was observed, suggesting that each system independently reflects a greater sensitivity to frustration in association with externalizing symptom severity.

Implications of ongoing neural development for the measurement of the error-related negativity in childhood

Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been proposed as biomarkers capable of reflecting individual differences in neural processing not necessarily detectable at the behavioral level. However, the role of ERPs in developmental research could be hampered by current methodological approaches to quantification. ERPs are extracted as an average waveform over many trials; however, actual amplitudes would be misrepresented by an average if there was high trial-to-trial variability in signal latency. Low signal temporal consistency is thought to be a characteristic of immature neural systems, although consistency is not routinely measured in ERP research. The present study examined the differential contributions of signal strength and temporal consistency across trials in the error-related negativity (ERN) in 6-year-old children, as well as the developmental changes that occur in these measures. The 234 children were assessed annually in kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade. At all assessments signal strength and temporal consistency were highly correlated with the average ERN amplitude, and were not correlated with each other. Consistent with previous findings, ERN deflections in the averaged waveform increased with age. This was found to be a function of developmental increases in signal temporal consistency, whereas signal strength showed a significant decline across this time period. In addition, average ERN amplitudes showed low-to-moderate stability across the three assessments whereas signal strength was highly stable. In contrast, signal temporal consistency did not evidence rank-order stability across these ages. Signal strength appears to reflect a stable individual trait whereas developmental changes in temporal consistency may be experientially influenced.

Comorbidities and continuities as ontogenic processes: toward a developmental spectrum model of externalizing psychopathology

Research on child and adolescent mental health problems has burgeoned since the inaugural issue of Development and Psychopathology was published in 1989. In the quarter century since, static models of psychopathology have been abandoned in favor of transactional models, following the agenda set by editor Dante Cicchetti and other proponents of the discipline. The transactional approach, which has been applied to autism, depression, self-injury, and delinquency, (a) specifies vulnerabilities and risk factors across multiple levels of analysis spanning genes to cultures, (b) identifies multifinal and equifinal pathways to psychopathology, and (c) transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. However, as noted by Rutter and Sroufe (2000), specific mechanisms of continuity, discontinuity, and comorbidity of psychopathology must be identified if we wish to understand etiology fully. In this article, we present a model of early-onset externalizing behavior in which comorbidities and continuities are viewed as ontogenic processes: products of complex longitudinal transactions between interdependent individual-level vulnerabilities (e.g., genetic, epigenetic, allostatic) and equally interdependent contextual risk factors (e.g., coercive parenting, deviant peer group affiliations, neighborhood criminality). Through interactions across levels of analysis, some individuals traverse along the externalizing spectrum, beginning with heritable trait impulsivity in preschool and ending in antisociality in adulthood. In describing our model, we note that (a) the approach outlined in the DSM to subtyping externalizing disorders continues to obscure developmental pathways to antisociality, (b) molecular genetics studies will likely not identify meaningful subtypes of externalizing disorder, and (c) ontogenic trait approaches to psychopathology are much more likely to advance the discipline in upcoming years.

Associations between respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity and internalizing and externalizing symptoms are emotion specific

Internalizing and externalizing disorders are often, though inconsistently in studies of young children, associated with low baseline levels of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RSA is thus considered to reflect the capacity for flexible and regulated affective reactivity and a general propensity for psychopathology. However, studies assessing RSA reactivity to emotional challenges tend to report more consistent associations with internalizing than with externalizing disorders, although it is unclear whether this is a function of the type of emotion challenges used. In the present study, we examined whether baseline RSA was associated with internalizing and/or externalizing severity in a sample of 273 young children (ages 5-6) with elevated symptoms of psychopathology. Following motivation-based models of emotion, we also tested whether RSA reactivity during withdrawal-based (fear, sadness) and approach-based (happiness, anger) emotion inductions was differentially associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms, respectively. Baseline RSA was not associated with externalizing or internalizing symptom severity. However, RSA reactivity to specific emotional challenges was associated differentially with each symptom domain. As expected, internalizing symptom severity was associated with greater RSA withdrawal (increased arousal) during fearful and sad film segments. Conversely, externalizing symptom severity was related to blunted RSA withdrawal during a happy film segment. The use of theoretically derived stimuli may be important in characterizing the nature of the deficits in emotion processing that differentiate the internalizing and externalizing domains of psychopathology.

The role of resting frontal EEG asymmetry in psychopathology: afferent or efferent filter?

Resting EEG asymmetry evident early in life is thought to bias affective behaviors and contribute to the development of psychopathology. However, it remains unclear at what stage of information processing this bias occurs. Asymmetry may serve as an afferent filter, modulating emotional reactivity to incoming stimuli; or as an efferent filter, modulating behavioral response tendencies under emotional conditions. This study examines 209 kindergarten children (M = 6.03 years old) to test predictions put forth by the two models. Resting asymmetry was examined in conjunction with electrodermal and cardiac measures of physiological reactivity to four emotion-inducing film clips (fear, sad, happy, anger) and teacher ratings of psychopathology. Results confirm an association between increased right side cortical activation and internalizing symptom severity as well as left activation and externalizing symptom severity. Significant interactions between resting asymmetry and physiological reactivity to emotion indicate that physiological reactivity moderates the association between resting asymmetry and symptoms of psychopathology.

Instantiating the multiple levels of analysis perspective in a program of study on externalizing behavior

During the last quarter century, developmental psychopathology has become increasingly inclusive and now spans disciplines ranging from psychiatric genetics to primary prevention. As a result, developmental psychopathologists have extended traditional diathesis-stress and transactional models to include causal processes at and across all relevant levels of analysis. Such research is embodied in what is known as the multiple levels of analysis perspective. We describe how multiple levels of analysis research has informed our current thinking about antisocial and borderline personality development among trait impulsive and therefore vulnerable individuals. Our approach extends the multiple levels of analysis perspective beyond simple Biology × Environment interactions by evaluating impulsivity across physiological systems (genetic, autonomic, hormonal, neural), psychological constructs (social, affective, motivational), developmental epochs (preschool, middle childhood, adolescence, adulthood), sexes (male, female), and methods of inquiry (self-report, informant report, treatment outcome, cardiovascular, electrophysiological, neuroimaging). By conducting our research using any and all available methods across these levels of analysis, we have arrived at a developmental model of trait impulsivity that we believe confers a greater understanding of this highly heritable trait and captures at least some heterogeneity in key behavioral outcomes, including delinquency and suicide.