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Abstract
Introduction: The emergence of anxiety during childhood is accompanied by the development of attentional biases to threat. However, the neural mechanisms underlying these biases are poorly understood. In addition, previous research has not examined whether state and trait anxiety are independently associated with threat-related biases.Methods: We compared ERP waveforms during the processing of emotional faces in a population sample of 58 6–11-year-olds who completed self-reported measures of trait and state anxiety and depression.Results: The results showed that the P1 was larger to angry than neutral faces in the left hemisphere, though early components (P1, N170) were not strongly associated with child anxiety or depression. In contrast, Late Positive Potential (LPP) amplitudes to angry (vs. neutral) faces were significantly and positively associated with symptoms of anxiety/depression. In addition, the difference between LPPs for angry (vs. neutral) faces was independently associated with state and trait anxiety symptoms.Discussion: The results showed that neural responses to facial emotion in children with elevated symptoms of anxiety and depression were most evident at later processing stages characterized as evaluative and effortful. The findings support cognitive models of threat perception in anxiety and indicate that trait elements of anxiety and more transitory fluctuations in anxious affect are important in understanding individual variation in the neural response to threat in late childhood.
Highlights
The emergence of anxiety during childhood is accompanied by the development of attentional biases to threat
While some theoretical frameworks suggest that information processing is a function of current emotional state such as state anxiety (e.g., Bower, 1981); most have argued that positive associations between anxious affect and attention to threat reflects elevated trait anxiety that interacts with state anxiety (Mogg and Bradley, 1998, 2016; Bar-Haim et al, 2007)
The current study examined the association between the neural processing of angry and happy facial stimuli with child report symptoms of trait and state anxiety and depression in 6–11 year old children
Summary
The emergence of anxiety during childhood is accompanied by the development of attentional biases to threat. Discussion: The results showed that neural responses to facial emotion in children with elevated symptoms of anxiety and depression were most evident at later processing stages characterized as evaluative and effortful. ERPs to Emotion in Childhood Anxiety by conceptual models of attention and anxiety which have proposed that attention biases for threat stimuli are evident in early (automatic) information processing stages and these processes cause or maintain anxious affect (e.g., Bar-Haim et al, 2007). Studies have found positive associations between self-reported trait anxiety symptoms in a community sample of children aged 9–12 years and reactions times to probes that followed angry vs neutral faces, indicating an attentional bias for threat in late childhood (Waters et al, 2010). In an eye movement task children aged 11–12 years diagnosed with pediatric anxiety disorder showed shorter saccade latencies to angry faces, compared to a healthy age-matched control group (Mueller et al, 2012)
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