A history of childhood behavioral inhibition and enhanced response monitoring in adolescence are linked to clinical anxiety.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Behaviorally inhibited (BI) children who also exhibit enhanced response monitoring might be at particularly high risk for anxiety disorders. The current study tests the hypothesis that response monitoring, as manifest in the error-related negativity (ERN), moderates the association between BI and anxiety.

Methods

Participants (n=113; 73 male) assessed for early-childhood BI were re-assessed as adolescents with a clinical interview and a flanker paradigm that generated behavioral data and event-related potentials (ERPs). Risk for anxiety disorders in adolescents was examined as a function of childhood-BI status and adolescent performance on the flanker paradigm.

Results

Adolescents with childhood BI displayed ERP evidence of enhanced response monitoring, man

SUBMITTER: McDermott JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2788124 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature