Multivariate Assessment of Inhibitory Control in Youth: Links With Psychopathology and Brain Function.

Inhibitory control is central to many theories of cognitive and brain development, and impairments in inhibitory control are posited to underlie developmental psychopathology. In this study, we tested the possibility of shared versus unique associations between inhibitory control and three common symptom dimensions in youth psychopathology: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, and irritability. We quantified inhibitory control using four different experimental tasks to estimate a latent variable in 246 youth (8-18 years old) with varying symptom types and levels. Participants were recruited from the Washington, D.C., metro region. Results of structural equation modeling integrating a bifactor model of psychopathology revealed that inhibitory control predicted a shared or general psychopathology dimension, but not ADHD-specific, anxiety-specific, or irritability-specific dimensions. Inhibitory control also showed a significant, selective association with global efficiency in a frontoparietal control network delineated during resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. These results support performance-based inhibitory control linked to resting-state brain function as an important predictor of comorbidity in youth psychopathology.

The role of anxiety and gender in anticipation and avoidance of naturalistic anxiety-provoking experiences during adolescence: An ecological momentary assessment study.

Objective: Anxiety symptoms often increase in late childhood/early adolescence, particularly among girls. However, few studies examine anxiety-relevant gender differences during anticipation and avoidance of naturalistic experiences during adolescence. The current study uses ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine associations among clinical anxiety, gender, anticipation, and attempted avoidance of person-specific anxiety-provoking experiences in youth ages 8-18. Method: 124 youth (73 girls) completed 7 consecutive days of EMA. Seventy participants (42 girls) met criteria for one or more anxiety disorders, while the remaining 54 were healthy controls (31 girls). Participants reported the experience that they were "most worried about happening that day" and completed ratings about that event including whether they attempted to avoid that experience. Multilevel models examined whether diagnostic group (anxious, healthy), gender (boys, girls), or their interaction predicted anticipatory ratings or avoidance of these experiences. Results: Analyses revealed significant diagnostic group by gender interactions for anticipatory ratings. Specifically, anxious girls reported greater worry and predicted more negative outcomes related to future experiences. However, only a main effect of diagnostic group emerged for attempted avoidance. Finally, anticipatory worry predicted higher rates of attempted avoidance, but this association did not vary by diagnostic group, gender, or their interaction. Conclusion: These findings extend the literature on the interplay of anticipation and avoidance to person-specific naturalistic experiences in pediatric anxiety. They reveal that anxious girls report more anticipatory anxiety and worry, while avoidance of real-world anxiety-provoking scenarios is a key concern for anxious youth independent of gender. By using EMA to examine person-specific anxiety-inducing experiences we can begin to understand how these processes and experiences unfold in the real world.