3 results
A computational network perspective on pediatric anxiety symptoms
- Rany Abend, Mira A. Bajaj, Daniel D. L. Coppersmith, Katharina Kircanski, Simone P. Haller, Elise M. Cardinale, Giovanni A. Salum, Reinout W. Wiers, Elske Salemink, Jeremy W. Pettit, Koraly Pérez-Edgar, Eli R. Lebowitz, Wendy K. Silverman, Yair Bar-Haim, Melissa A. Brotman, Ellen Leibenluft, Eiko I. Fried, Daniel S. Pine
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- Journal:
- Psychological Medicine / Volume 51 / Issue 10 / July 2021
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 August 2020, pp. 1752-1762
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Background
While taxonomy segregates anxiety symptoms into diagnoses, patients typically present with multiple diagnoses; this poses major challenges, particularly for youth, where mixed presentation is particularly common. Anxiety comorbidity could reflect multivariate, cross-domain interactions insufficiently emphasized in current taxonomy. We utilize network analytic approaches that model these interactions by characterizing pediatric anxiety as involving distinct, inter-connected, symptom domains. Quantifying this network structure could inform views of pediatric anxiety that shape clinical practice and research.
MethodsParticipants were 4964 youths (ages 5–17 years) from seven international sites. Participants completed standard symptom inventory assessing severity along distinct domains that follow pediatric anxiety diagnostic categories. We first applied network analytic tools to quantify the anxiety domain network structure. We then examined whether variation in the network structure related to age (3-year longitudinal assessments) and sex, key moderators of pediatric anxiety expression.
ResultsThe anxiety network featured a highly inter-connected structure; all domains correlated positively but to varying degrees. Anxiety patients and healthy youth differed in severity but demonstrated a comparable network structure. We noted specific sex differences in the network structure; longitudinal data indicated additional structural changes during childhood. Generalized-anxiety and panic symptoms consistently emerged as central domains.
ConclusionsPediatric anxiety manifests along multiple, inter-connected symptom domains. By quantifying cross-domain associations and related moderation effects, the current study might shape views on the diagnosis, treatment, and study of pediatric anxiety.
Levels of early-childhood behavioral inhibition predict distinct neurodevelopmental pathways to pediatric anxiety
- Rany Abend, Caroline Swetlitz, Lauren K. White, Tomer Shechner, Yair Bar-Haim, Courtney Filippi, Katharina Kircanski, Simone P. Haller, Brenda E. Benson, Gang Chen, Ellen Leibenluft, Nathan A. Fox, Daniel S. Pine
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- Journal:
- Psychological Medicine / Volume 50 / Issue 1 / January 2020
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 08 January 2019, pp. 96-106
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Background
Anxiety symptoms gradually emerge during childhood and adolescence. Individual differences in behavioral inhibition (BI), an early-childhood temperament, may shape developmental paths through which these symptoms arise. Cross-sectional research suggests that level of early-childhood BI moderates associations between later anxiety symptoms and threat-related amygdala–prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuitry function. However, no study has characterized these associations longitudinally. Here, we tested whether level of early-childhood BI predicts distinct evolving associations between amygdala–PFC function and anxiety symptoms across development.
MethodsEighty-seven children previously assessed for BI level in early childhood provided data at ages 10 and/or 13 years, consisting of assessments of anxiety and an fMRI-based dot-probe task (including threat, happy, and neutral stimuli). Using linear-mixed-effects models, we investigated longitudinal changes in associations between anxiety symptoms and threat-related amygdala–PFC connectivity, as a function of early-childhood BI.
ResultsIn children with a history of high early-childhood BI, anxiety symptoms became, with age, more negatively associated with right amygdala–left dorsolateral-PFC connectivity when attention was to be maintained on threat. In contrast, with age, low-BI children showed an increasingly positive anxiety–connectivity association during the same task condition. Behaviorally, at age 10, anxiety symptoms did not relate to fluctuations in attention bias (attention bias variability, ABV) in either group; by age 13, low-BI children showed a negative anxiety–ABV association, whereas high-BI children showed a positive anxiety–ABV association.
ConclusionsEarly-childhood BI levels predict distinct neurodevelopmental pathways to pediatric anxiety symptoms. These pathways involve distinct relations among brain function, behavior, and anxiety symptoms, which may inform diagnosis and treatment.
Behavioral activation system moderates self-referent processing following recovery from depression
- K. Kircanski, H. Mazur, I. H. Gotlib
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- Journal:
- Psychological Medicine / Volume 43 / Issue 9 / September 2013
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 08 January 2013, pp. 1909-1919
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Background
Previous research has implicated the behavioral activation system (BAS) in depression. The relationship of BAS functioning to aspects of cognitive vulnerability to depression, however, is not known.
MethodThe present study investigated associations among level of BAS functioning and the encoding and recall of positive and negative self-referent information in currently non-depressed participants with a history of recurrent major depression (recovered; RMD) and in never-depressed control participants (CTL). Participants completed self-report measures of levels of BAS and behavioral inhibition system (BIS) functioning. Following a negative mood induction, participants were presented with a series of positive and negative adjectives; they indicated which words described them and later recalled as many of the words as they were able.
ResultsThe relationship of BAS functioning to self-referent processing was dependent on participant group. Although lower BAS reward responsivity was associated with the endorsement and recall of fewer positive words across groups, the magnitude of these associations was stronger, and was only significant, within the RMD group. Furthermore, only for RMD participants was lower BAS reward responsivity associated with the endorsement of more negative words. These effects were not accounted for by depressive or anxiety symptoms, current mood, or level of BIS functioning.
ConclusionsThese results indicate that BAS functioning may be distinctively linked to negatively biased self-referent processing, one facet of cognitive vulnerability to depression, in individuals with a history of major depressive disorder. Enhancing BAS functioning may be important in buffering cognitive vulnerability to depression.