Vigilant attention to threat, sleep patterns, and anxiety in peripubertal youth.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Vigilant attention to threat is commonly observed in anxiety, undergoes developmental changes in early adolescence, and has been proposed to interfere with sleep initiation and maintenance. We present one of the first studies to use objective measures to examine associations between vigilant attention to threat and difficulties initiating and maintaining sleep in an early adolescent anxious sample. We also explore the moderating role of development (age, puberty) and sex.

Methods

Participants were 66 peripubertal youth (ages 9-14) with a primary anxiety disorder and 24 healthy control subjects. A dot-probe task was used to assess attentional bias to fearful relative to neutral face stimuli. Eye-tracking indexed selective attentional bias to threat, and reaction ti

SUBMITTER: Ricketts EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6214801 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature