TY - JOUR
T1 - Levels of early-childhood behavioral inhibition predict distinct neurodevelopmental pathways to pediatric anxiety
AU - Abend, Rany
AU - Swetlitz, Caroline
AU - White, Lauren K.
AU - Shechner, Tomer
AU - Bar-Haim, Yair
AU - Filippi, Courtney
AU - Kircanski, Katharina
AU - Haller, Simone P.
AU - Benson, Brenda E.
AU - Chen, Gang
AU - Leibenluft, Ellen
AU - Fox, Nathan A.
AU - Pine, Daniel S.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - 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.Methods Eighty-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.Results In 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.Conclusions Early-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.
AB - 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.Methods Eighty-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.Results In 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.Conclusions Early-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.
KW - Amygdala
KW - anxiety
KW - attention
KW - behavioral inhibition
KW - children
KW - connectivity
KW - developmental
KW - fMRI
KW - prefrontal cortex
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85059632816&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0033291718003999
DO - 10.1017/S0033291718003999
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C2 - 30616705
AN - SCOPUS:85059632816
SN - 0033-2917
VL - 50
SP - 96
EP - 106
JO - Psychological Medicine
JF - Psychological Medicine
IS - 1
ER -