Dataset Information

Low Emotional Awareness as a Transdiagnostic Mechanism Underlying Psychopathology in Adolescence.

ABSTRACT: The ability to identify and label one's emotions is associated with effective emotion regulation, rendering emotional awareness important for mental health. We evaluated how emotional awareness was related to psychopathology and whether low emotional awareness was a transdiagnostic mechanism explaining the increase in psychopathology during the transition to adolescence and as a function of childhood trauma-specifically violence exposure. In Study 1, children and adolescents (N=120, aged 7-19 years) reported on emotional awareness and psychopathology. Emotional awareness was negatively associated with psychopathology (p-factor) and worsened across age in females but not males. In Study 2 (N=262, aged 8-16 years), we replicated these findings and demonstrated longitudinally that low emotional awareness mediated increases in p-factor as a function of age in females and violence exposure. These findings indicate that low emotional awareness may be a transdiagnostic mechanism linking adolescent development, sex, and trauma with the emergence of psychopathology.

SUBMITTER: Weissman DG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7983841 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Low Emotional Awareness as a Transdiagnostic Mechanism Underlying Psychopathology in Adolescence.

Weissman David G DG Nook Erik C EC Dews Aridenne A AA Miller Adam Bryant AB Lambert Hilary K HK Sasse Stephanie F SF Somerville Leah H LH McLaughlin Katie A KA

Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science 20200722 6

The ability to identify and label one's emotions is associated with effective emotion regulation, rendering emotional awareness important for mental health. We evaluated how emotional awareness was related to psychopathology and whether low emotional awareness was a transdiagnostic mechanism explaining the increase in psychopathology during the transition to adolescence and as a function of childhood trauma-specifically violence exposure. In Study 1, children and adolescents (N=120, aged 7-19 ye ...[more]

PMID: 33758688

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Project description:ImportanceIdentifying brain-based markers of resiliency that reliably predict who is and is not at elevated risk for developing psychopathology among children who experience adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is important for improving our mechanistic understanding of these etiological links between child adversity and psychopathology and guiding precision medicine and prevention efforts for reducing psychiatric impact of ACEs.ObjectiveTo examine associations between ACEs and transdiagnostic psychopathology during the transition from preadolescence to early adolescence and test whether these associations are moderated by a hypothesized resilience factor, a previously identified connectome variate (CV) that is associated with higher cognitive function and lower psychopathology.Design setting and participantsThis study was conducted in a longitudinal design based on multicenter data from a community cohort of U.S. youth aged of 9-11 at baseline, who participated in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (N=7,382 at baseline and 6,813 at 2-year follow-up). Linear regression models and moderation analyses were used to characterize concurrent and prospective associations between lifetime ACEs and number of DSM-5 psychiatric disorders (indexing transdiagnostic psychopathology) and to determine if individual variations in these associations were moderated by the CV derived from resting-state fMRI at baseline.Main outcomes and measuresCumulative number of current DSM-5 psychiatric disorders assessed using the computerized self-admin version Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (KSADS-5) and lifetime ACEs assessed from child and parent reports at baseline (9-10 years) and 2-year-follow-up (11-12 years).ResultsACE total scores correlated positively with the cumulative number of current DSM-5 psychiatric disorders at both baseline (r =.258, p < .001) and 2-year follow-up (r =.257, p < .001). The baseline CV score moderated the ACE-disorder associations at baseline (B = -0.021, p < .001) and at 2-year follow-up (B = -0.018, p = .008), as well as the association between the changes in ACE and in the number of disorders from baseline to year 2 (B = -0.012, p = .045). Post-hoc analyses further showed that the moderation effect of CV on ACE-psychopathology associations was specific to the threat-related ACEs and to female youth.Conclusions and relevanceThese findings provide preliminary evidence for a connectome-based resiliency marker and suggest that functional connectivity strength in a broad system including frontal-parietal cortices and subcortical nuclei relevant to cognitive control may protect preadolescents who have experienced lifetime ACEs--especially females and those experiencing threat-related ACEs--from developing transdiagnostic psychopathology.

Project description:When making decisions in everyday life, we often rely on an internally generated sense of confidence to help us revise and direct future behaviours. For instance, confidence directly informs whether further information should be sought prior to commitment to a final decision. Many studies have shown that aging and both clinical and sub-clinical symptoms of psychopathology are associated with systematic alterations in confidence. However, it remains unknown whether these confidence distortions influence information-seeking behaviour. We investigated this question in a large general population sample (N = 908). Participants completed a battery of psychiatric symptom questionnaires and performed a perceptual decision-making task with confidence ratings in which they were offered the option to seek helpful information (at a cost) before committing to a final decision. Replicating previous findings, an 'anxious-depression' (AD) symptom dimension was associated with systematically low confidence, despite no detriment in objective task accuracy. Conversely, a 'compulsive behaviour and intrusive thoughts' (CIT) dimension was associated with impaired task accuracy but paradoxical over-confidence. However, neither symptom dimension was significantly associated with an increased or decreased tendency to seek information. Hence, participants scoring highly for AD or CIT did not use the option to information seek any more than average to either increase their confidence (AD) or improve the accuracy of their decisions (CIT). In contrast, older age was associated with impaired accuracy and decreased confidence initially, but increased information seeking behaviour mediated increases in both accuracy and confidence for final decisions. Hence, older adults used the information seeking option to overcome initial deficits in objective performance and to increase their confidence accordingly. The results show an appropriate use of information seeking to overcome perceptual deficits and low confidence in healthy aging which was not present in transdiagnostic psychopathology.

Dataset Information

Low Emotional Awareness as a Transdiagnostic Mechanism Underlying Psychopathology in Adolescence.

Publications

Low Emotional Awareness as a Transdiagnostic Mechanism Underlying Psychopathology in Adolescence.

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