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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.

Excessive monitoring of one's performance is a characteristic of anxiety disorders that has been linked to alterations in implicit emotion regulation (ER), including elevations in neural measures of performance monitoring (i.e., error- and correct-related negativity; ERN and CRN). Elevations in ERN and CRN amplitudes have been reported consistently in anxiety disorders, suggesting that an overactive performance monitoring system is linked to ER difficulties in anxiety. Yet, the relevance of these lab-based neural measures for day-to-day emotional functioning remains poorly understood. This study examined the degree to which ERN and CRN amplitudes are associated with measures of daily ER difficulties in youth with anxiety disorders. Youth (N = 100, Mage = 11.14, SDage = 1.46) completed a computerized flanker task assessing the ERN and CRN. They then completed a 5-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol assessing their daily ER (i.e., intensity of momentary and peak negative affect, intensity of worry, reliance on maladaptive ER strategies). Results showed that more negative mean CRN amplitudes were associated with higher levels of negative emotional reactivity and more intense worries. There were no significant associations between ERN amplitude and EMA measures. Furthermore, elevations in CRN were linked to more frequent use of maladaptive ER strategies (i.e., rumination, physiological reactivity, avoidance). Together, results indicate that among youth with anxiety, individual differences in CRN, but not ERN, amplitudes are related to daily ER difficulties. Findings highlight the clinical utility of a lab-based neural measure of ER, suggesting that the CRN, rather than the ERN, reflects individual ER differences in the context of daily life among youth with pediatric anxiety disorders. As such, the CRN might serve as an important dimensional index of a treatment target that can be tracked with a validated, multi-method measure.

Social anxiety disproportionately impacts individuals from certain cultural and developmental groups, namely those from Latinx and Asian American cultures and adolescents. Neural sensitivity to social feedback has been shown to vary across individuals and could contribute to this disparity by further exacerbating differences; thus, this could be an important phenomenon for understanding, preventing, and treating social anxiety. The goal of the present study was to examine the association of social anxiety with a neural correlate of feedback processing, the feedback-related negativity (FRN), and determine if there was a moderating effect of racial/ethnic group. A community sample of 104 Latinx (n = 41), Asian American (n = 24), and non-Latinx White (NLW; n = 39) adolescents (ages 13-17) completed a computerized peer feedback task while continuous electroencephalogram was recorded. Social anxiety and FRN measures were differentially associated as a function of race/ethnicity. NLW adolescents demonstrated greater FRN responses to acceptance feedback as social anxiety increased, whereas FRN responses to both rejection and acceptance feedback were related to greater social anxiety for Asian American adolescents. Notably, the Latinx group showed the greatest FRN responses yet endorsed the least amount of social anxiety, with no relation between social anxiety and FRN detected. Results highlight cultural variation in the relation between neural correlates of self-regulatory processes and social anxiety. This information could guide culturally-informed models of social anxiety that adopt a multiple units of analysis framework.

The perceived salience of errors can be influenced by individual-level motivational factors. Specifically, those who endorse a high degree of collectivism, a cultural value that emphasizes prioritization of interpersonal relationships, may find errors occurring in a social context to be more aversive than individuals who endorse collectivism to a lesser degree, resulting in upregulation of a neural correlate of error-monitoring, the error-related negativity (ERN). This study aimed to identify cultural variation in neural response to errors occurring in a social context in a sample of diverse adolescents. It was predicted that greater collectivism would be associated with enhanced neural response to errors occurring as part of a team. Participants were 95 Latinx (n  = 35), Asian American (n  = 20) and non-Latinx White (n  = 40) adolescents (ages 13–17) who completed a go/no-go task while continuous electroencephalogram was recorded. The task included social (team) and non-social (individual) conditions. ERN was quantified using mean amplitude measures. Regression models demonstrated that collectivism modulated neural response to errors occurring in a social context, an effect that was most robust for Latinx adolescents. Understanding cultural variation in neural sensitivity to social context could inform understanding of both normative and maladaptive processes associated with self-regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]