Anxiety may alter the role of fronto-striatal circuitry in adolescent risky decision-making.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders often emerge in adolescence and are associated with risk aversion. Risk aversion conflicts with the typical adolescent approach-motivated phenotype and can interfere with learning and contribute to symptom maintenance. METHODS: We investigated the neural and behavioral correlates of risk avoidance in a diverse sample of adolescents (N = 137; MAge = 11.3; 34.3 % white, 22.1 % Latino, 20 % Asian, 14.3 % Black, 9.3 % Mixed Race) as they completed a task involving risky decision-making and response inhibition during fMRI. Voluntary cautious choice was compared to successful response inhibition to isolate the neural systems underlying the decision to avoid a risk and identify their relation to risk-taking and anxiety in adolescents. RESULTS: Anxious adolescents self-reported more avoidance but demonstrated normative risk-taking on the laboratory task. Interestingly, they responded quickly during response inhibition but took longer to decide in the face of risk. All youth showed widespread recruitment of decision-making and salience network regions when deciding to avoid risk. The neural mechanisms driving avoidance differed based on anxiety such that left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) activation was linked to risk avoidance in adolescents with low anxiety and risk-taking in anxious adolescents, while striatal connectivity was linked to risk avoidance in anxious adolescents and risk-taking in those with low anxiety. LIMITATIONS: This work is cross-sectional and therefore cannot speak to causality or directionality of effects. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the neural mechanisms contributing to adolescent risk-taking may function to promote avoidance in anxious youth, increasing vulnerability to maladaptive avoidance and further anxiety development.

Characterizing trajectories of anxiety, depression, and criminal offending in male adolescents over the 5 years following their first arrest.

Youth in the juvenile justice system evince high rates of mental health symptoms, including anxiety and depression. How these symptom profiles change after first contact with the justice system and - importantly - how they are related to re-offending remains unclear. Here, we use latent growth curve modeling to characterize univariate and multivariate growth of anxiety, depression, and re-offending in 1216 male adolescents over 5 years following their first arrest. Overall, the group showed significant linear and quadratic growth in internalizing symptoms and offending behaviors over time such that levels decreased initially after first arrest followed by a small but significant upturn occurring a few years later. Crucially, multivariate growth models revealed strong positive relationships between the rates of growth in internalizing symptoms and offending behaviors such that improvements in mental health related to greater decreases in offending, and vice versa. These results highlight the reciprocal nature of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescence, underscoring the importance of considering mental health alongside offending in the juvenile justice system.

Neural correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation in youth with and without anxiety.

BACKGROUND: Youth with anxiety disorders struggle with managing emotions relative to peers, but the neural basis of this difference has not been examined. METHODS: Youth (Mage = 13.6; range = 8-17) with (n = 37) and without (n = 24) anxiety disorders completed a cognitive reappraisal task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Emotional reactivity and regulation, functional activation, and beta-series connectivity were compared across groups. RESULTS: Groups did not differ on emotional reactivity or regulation. However, fronto-limbic activation after viewing aversive imagery with and without regulation, as well as affect ratings without regulation, were higher for anxious youth. Neither group demonstrated age-related changes in regulation, though anxious youth became less reactive with age. Stronger amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex connectivity related to greater anxiety in control youth, but less anxiety in anxious youth. CONCLUSION: Anxious youth regulated when instructed, but regulation ability did not relate to age. Viewing aversive imagery related to heightened fronto-limbic activation even after reappraisal. Emotion dysregulation in youth anxiety disorders may stem from heightened emotionality and potent bottom-up neurobiological responses to aversive stimuli. Findings suggest the importance of treatments focused on both reducing initial emotional reactivity and bolstering regulatory capacity.

Exploring Disproportionate Minority Contact in the Juvenile Justice System Over the Year Following First Arrest.

Minority youth are disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system. Examining how racial disparities relate to biased entry into and continued involvement with the system, while accounting for past and current offending, can provide context about the mechanisms behind overrepresentation. 1,216 adolescents were examined after first arrest to explore associations between race and history of self-reported offending, likelihood of formal processing, and likelihood of rearrest. Black youth committed fewer offenses prior to arrest than White youth, Black and Latino youth were more likely to be formally processed, and Black youth were most likely to be rearrested (even controlling for postbaseline offending), highlighting that minority youth are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system despite similar or lower levels of criminal behavior.