Neural Reactivity to Angry Faces Predicts Treatment Response in Pediatric Anxiety.
Although cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy (CBT) and pharmacotherapy are evidence-based treatments for pediatric anxiety, many youth with anxiety disorders fail to respond to these treatments. Given limitations of clinical measures in predicting treatment response, identifying neural predictors is timely. In this study, 35 anxious youth (ages 7-19 years) completed an emotional face-matching task during which the late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) component that indexes sustained attention towards emotional stimuli, was measured. Following the ERP measurement, youth received CBT or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment, and the LPP was examined as a predictor of treatment response. Findings indicated that, accounting for pre-treatment anxiety severity, neural reactivity to emotional faces predicted anxiety severity post- CBT and SSRI treatment such that enhanced electrocortical response to angry faces was associated with better treatment response. An enhanced LPP to angry faces may predict treatment response insofar as it may reflect greater emotion dysregulation or less avoidance and/or enhanced engagement with environmental stimuli in general, including with treatment.
['Bunford|Nora|N|', 'Kujawa|Autumn|A|', 'Fitzgerald|Kate D|KD|', 'Swain|James E|JE|', 'Hanna|Gregory L|GL|', 'Koschmann|Elizabeth|E|', 'Simpson|David|D|', 'Connolly|Sucheta|S|', 'Monk|Christopher S|CS|', 'Phan|K Luan|KL|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000786:Anger D001007:Anxiety D002648:Child D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy D005071:Evoked Potentials D005149:Facial Expression D000066499:Facial Recognition D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care D017367:Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors D055815:Young Adult
Treatment response Anxiety Late positive potential (LPP) Event-related potential (ERP)