Neuropeptide Y Reduces Social Fear in Male Mice: Involvement of Y1 and Y2 Receptors in the Dorsolateral Septum and Central Amygdala.

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) has anxiolytic-like effects and facilitates the extinction of cued and contextual fear in rodents. We previously showed that intracerebroventricular administration of NPY reduces the expression of social fear in a mouse model of social fear conditioning (SFC) and localized these effects to the dorsolateral septum (DLS) and central amygdala (CeA). In the present study, we aimed to identify the receptor subtypes that mediate these local effects of NPY. We show that NPY (0.1 nmol/0.2 µL/side) reduced the expression of SFC-induced social fear in a brain region- and receptor-specific manner in male mice. In the DLS, NPY reduced the expression of social fear by acting on Y2 receptors but not on Y1 receptors. As such, prior administration of the Y2 receptor antagonist BIIE0246 (0.2 nmol/0.2 µL/side) but not the Y1 receptor antagonist BIBO3304 trifluoroacetate (0.2 nmol/0.2 µL/side) blocked the effects of NPY in the DLS. In the CeA, however, BIBO3304 trifluoroacetate but not BIIE0246 blocked the effects of NPY, suggesting that NPY reduced the expression of social fear by acting on Y1 receptors but not Y2 receptors within the CeA. This study suggests that at least two distinct receptor subtypes are differentially recruited in the DLS and CeA to mediate the effects of NPY on the expression of social fear.

Evaluation of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy vs Mindfulness Meditation in Brain Changes During Reappraisal and Acceptance Among Patients With Social Anxiety Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Cognitive behavioral group therapy (CBGT) and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) are thought to help patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) via distinct emotion-regulation mechanisms. However, no study has compared the effects of CBGT and MBSR on brain and negative emotion indicators of cognitive reappraisal and acceptance in patients with SAD. Objective: To investigate the effects of CBGT and MBSR on reappraisal and acceptance in patients with SAD and to test whether treatment-associated brain changes are associated with social anxiety symptoms 1 year posttreatment. Design, Setting, and Participants: In this randomized clinical trial, a total of 108 unmedicated adults diagnosed with generalized SAD were randomly assigned to 12 weeks of CBGT, MBSR, or waitlist. The final sample included 31 patients receiving CBGT, 32 patients receiving MBSR, and 32 waitlist patients. Data were collected at the psychology department at Stanford University from September 2012 to December 2014. Data were analyzed from February 2019 to December 2020. Interventions: CBGT and MBSR. Main Outcomes and Measures: Changes in self-reported negative emotion and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal within an a priori-defined brain search region mask derived from a meta-analysis of cognitive reappraisal and attention regulation 1 year posttreatment. Results: Of 108 participants, 60 (56%) were female. The mean (SD) age was 32.7 (8.0) years. Self-reported race and ethnicity data were collected to inform the generalizability of the study to the wider population and to satisfy the requirements of the National Institutes of Health. From the categories provided by the National Institutes of Health, 47 participants selected White (43.5%), 42 selected Asian (38.9%) 10 selected Latinx (9.3%), 1 selected Black (1%), 1 selected Native American (1%), and 7 selected more than 1 race (6.5%). CBGT and MBSR were associated with a significant decrease in negative emotion (partial η2 range, 0.38 to 0.53) with no significant between-group differences when reacting (ß, -0.04; SE, 0.09; 95% CI, -0.11 to 0.08; t92 = -0.37; P = .71), reappraising (ß, -0.15; SE, 0.09; 95% CI, -0.32 to 0.03; t92 = -1.67; P = .10), or accepting (ß, -0.05; SE, 0.08; 95% CI, -0.20 to 0.11; t92 = -0.59; P = .56). There was a significant increase in BOLD percentage signal change in cognitive and attention-regulation regions when reappraising (CBGT = 0.031; MBSR = 0.037) and accepting (CBGT = 0.012; MBSR = 0.077) negative self-beliefs. CBGT and MBSR did not differ in decreased negative emotion and increased reappraisal and acceptance BOLD responses. Reappraisal-associated MBSR (vs CBGT) negative emotions and CBGT (vs MBSR) brain responses were associated with social anxiety symptoms 1 year posttreatment. Conclusions and Relevance: The results of this study suggest that CBGT and MBSR may be effective treatments with long-term benefits for patients with SAD that recruit cognitive and attention-regulation brain networks. Despite contrasting models of therapeutic change, CBT and MBSR may both enhance reappraisal and acceptance emotion regulation strategies. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02036658.

Group-level physiological synchrony and individual-level anxiety predict positive affective behaviors during a group decision-making task.

Joint performance can lead to the synchronization of physiological processes among group members during a shared task. Recently, it has been shown that synchronization is indicative of subjective ratings of group processes and task performance. However, different methods have been used to quantify synchronization, and little is known about the effects of the choice of method and level of analysis (individuals, dyads, or triads) on the results. In this study, participants performed a decision-making task in groups of three while physiological signals (heart rate and electrodermal activity), positive affective behavior, and personality traits were measured. First, we investigated the effects of different levels of analysis of physiological synchrony on affective behavior. We computed synchrony measures as (a) individual contributions to group synchrony, (b) the average dyadic synchrony within a group, and (c) group-level synchrony. Second, we assessed the association between physiological synchrony and positive affective behavior. Third, we investigated the moderating effects of trait anxiety and social phobia on behavior. We discovered that the effects of physiological synchrony on positive affective behavior were particularly strong at the group level but nonsignificant at the individual and dyadic levels. Moreover, we found that heart rate and electrodermal synchronization showed opposite effects on group members' display of affective behavior. Finally, trait anxiety moderated the relationship between physiological synchrony and affective behavior, perhaps due to social uncertainty, while social phobia did not have a moderating effect. We discuss these results regarding the role of different physiological signals and task demands during joint action.

Physiological, psychosocial, and environmental factors in depression among autistic girls.

Autism Spectrum Disorder and depression are often co-occurring in young people. However, despite the association between these two disorders, and the fact that females have a higher prevalence of depression than males in the general population, there is little reported evidence regarding the correlates of depression in young autistic females. Several physiological (age, menarche, HPA-axis responses), psychological (social anxiety), and environmental or genetic (mothers' depression) factors were tested for their contribution to depression severity in a sample of 53 autistic girls aged 6 yr to 17 yr. Depression scores were collected from the girls' self-ratings and also from the ratings their mothers gave them. Regression results indicated that girls' social anxiety, age, and mothers' depression were common significant contributors to both sets of depression scores, but with different effects. Autistic girls' self-reports of their depression were significantly associated with their HPA-axis responses but not with their menarche status. Implications for research and clinical settings are discussed.

Candidate Factors Maintaining Social Anxiety in the Context of Psychotic Experiences: A Systematic Review.

Social anxiety is common in psychosis and associated with impaired functioning, poorer quality of life, and higher symptom severity. This study systematically reviewed factors maintaining social anxiety in people with attenuated, transient, or persistent psychotic experiences. Other correlates of social anxiety were also examined. MEDLINE, Embase, CENTRAL, and PsycINFO were searched for relevant literature up to October 19, 2020. Forty-eight articles were eligible for narrative synthesis: 38 cross-sectional studies, 8 prospective studies, 1 uncontrolled trial, and 1 qualitative study. From 12060 participants, the majority was general population (n = 8771), followed by psychosis samples (n = 2532) and those at high risk of psychosis (n = 757). The methodological quality and risk of bias were assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Ninety percent of studies were rated as high to very-high quality. Poorer quality studies typically failed to adequately control for confounds and provided insufficient information on the measurement validity and reliability. Prominent psychological factors maintaining social anxiety included self-perceptions of stigma and shame. Common correlates of social anxiety included poorer functioning and lower quality of life. In conclusion, stigma and shame could be targeted as a causal mechanism in future interventional studies. The integration of findings from this review lead us to propose a new theoretical model to guide future intervention research.

Processing of increased frequency of social interaction in social anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder.

We investigated how patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) process an increase in the frequency of social interaction. We used an EEG-compatible version of the online ball-tossing game Cyberball to induce an increase in the frequency of social interaction. In the first condition, each player received the ball equally often (inclusion: 33% ball reception). In the following condition, the frequency of the ball reception was increased (overinclusion: 45% ball reception). The main outcome variable was the event-related potential P2, an indicator for social reward processing. Moreover, positive emotions were assessed. Twenty-eight patients with SAD, 29 patients with BPD and 28 healthy controls (HCs) participated. As expected, HCs and patients with BPD, but not patients with SAD, showed an increase in the P2 amplitude from the inclusion to the overinclusion condition. Contrary to our expectations, positive emotions did not change from the inclusion to the overinclusion condition. EEG results provide preliminary evidence that patients with BPD and HCs, but not patients with SAD, process an increase in the frequency of social interaction as rewarding.

Mouse-tracking reveals cognitive conflict during negative impression formation in women with Borderline Personality Disorder or Social Anxiety Disorder.

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) suffer from substantial interpersonal dysfunction and have difficulties establishing social bonds. A tendency to form negative first impressions of others could contribute to this by way of reducing approach behavior. We tested whether women with BPD or SAD would show negative impression formation compared to healthy women (HCs). We employed the Thin Slices paradigm and showed videos of 52 authentic target participants to 32 women with BPD, 29 women with SAD, and 37 HCs. We asked participants to evaluate whether different positive or negative adjectives described targets and expected BPD raters to provide the most negative ratings, followed by SAD and HC. BPD and SAD raters both agreed with negative adjectives more often than HCs (e.g., 'Yes, the person is greedy'), and BPD raters rejected positive adjectives more often (e.g., 'No, the person is not humble.'). However, BPD and SAD raters did not differ significantly from each other. Additionally, we used the novel process tracing method mouse-tracking to assess the cognitive conflict (via trajectory deviations) raters experienced during decision-making. We hypothesized that HCs would experience more conflict when making unfavorable (versus favorable) evaluations and that this pattern would flip in BPD and SAD. We quantified cognitive conflict via maximum absolute deviations (MADs) of the mouse-trajectories. As hypothesized, HCs showed more conflict when rejecting versus agreeing with positive adjectives. The pattern did not flip in BPD and SAD but was substantially reduced, such that BPD and SAD showed similar levels of conflict when rejecting and agreeing with positive adjectives. Contrary to the hypothesis for BPD and SAD, all three groups experienced substantial conflict when agreeing with negative adjectives. We discuss therapeutic implications of the combined choice and mouse-tracking results.

Which kind of feedback has a greater impact on individuals with social anxiety: facial or textual? An ERP study.

The present study is the first to compare the examined electrophysiological activity of facial and textual feedback of students with social anxiety after they finished a visual search task. Compared to textual feedback, facial feedback is much more effective. Specifically speaking, positive facial feedback caused stronger feedback-related negativity (FRN), and negative facial feedback caused late positive potential (LPP) of stronger amplitude. These changes in the FRN component (associated with feedback) and LPP (related to controlled attention engagement) provide clues about the interplay between anxiety and attention allocation in processing facial feedback. The results have implications for identifying the feedback format that will be most helpful for individuals with social anxiety.

Emotional and interpersonal mechanisms in community SSRI treatment of social anxiety disorder.

BACKGROUND: Affective and interpersonal behavioural patterns characteristic of social anxiety disorder show improvement during treatment with serotonin agonists (e.g., selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), commonly used in the treatment of social anxiety disorder. The present study sought to establish whether, during community psychopharmacological treatment of social anxiety disorder, changes in positive or negative affect and agreeable or quarrelsome behaviour mediate improvement in social anxiety symptom severity or follow from it. METHODS: Adults diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (n = 48) recorded their interpersonal behaviour and affect naturalistically in an event-contingent recording procedure for 1-week periods before and during the first 4 months of treatment with paroxetine. Participants and treating psychiatrists assessed the severity of social anxiety symptoms monthly. A multivariate latent change score framework examined temporally lagged associations of change in affect and interpersonal behaviour with change in social anxiety symptom severity. RESULTS: Elevated agreeable behaviour and positive affect predicted greater subsequent reduction in social anxiety symptom severity over the following month of treatment. Elevated negative affect, but not quarrelsome behaviour, predicted less subsequent reduction in symptom severity. LIMITATIONS: Limitations included limited assessment of extreme behaviour (e.g., violence) that may have precluded examining the efficacy of paroxetine because of the lack of a placebo control group. CONCLUSION: The present study suggests that interpersonal behaviour and affect may be putative mechanisms of action for serotonergic treatment of social anxiety disorder. Prosocial behaviour and positive affect increase during serotonergic treatment of social anxiety disorder. Specifically, modulating agreeable behaviour, positive affect and negative affect in individuals' daily lives may partially explain and refine clinical intervention.

Social anxiety symptoms, heart rate variability, and vocal emotion recognition in women: evidence for parasympathetically-mediated positivity bias.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Individuals with social anxiety disorder show pronounced perceptual biases in social contexts, such as being hypervigilant to threat and discounting positive social cues. Parasympathetic activity influences responses to the social environment and may underlie these biases. This study examined the associations among social anxiety symptoms, heart rate variability (HRV), and vocal emotion recognition. DESIGN AND METHOD: Female undergraduate students (N = 124) self-reported their social anxiety symptoms using the Social Anxiety Disorder Dimensional Scale and completed a computerized vocal emotion recognition task using stimuli from the Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song stimulus set. HRV was measured at baseline and during the emotion recognition task. RESULTS: Women with more social anxiety symptoms had higher emotion recognition accuracy (p = .021) and rated positive stimuli as less intense (p = .032). Additionally, although those with greater social anxiety symptoms did not have lower resting HRV (p = .459), they did have lower task HRV (p = .026), which mediated their lower positivity bias and greater recognition accuracy. CONCLUSIONS: A parasympathetically-mediated positivity bias may indicate or facilitate normal social functioning in women. Additionally, HRV during a symptom- or disorder-relevant task may predict task performance and reveal parasympathetic differences that are not found at baseline.

Training negative connectivity patterns between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and amygdala through fMRI-based neurofeedback to target adolescent socially-avoidant behaviour.

Social anxiety is prevalent in adolescence. Given its role in maintaining fears, reducing social avoidance through cognitive reappraisal may help attenuate social anxiety. We used fMRI-based neurofeedback (NF) to increase 'adaptive' patterns of negative connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the amygdala to change reappraisal ability, and alter social avoidance and approach behaviours in adolescents. Twenty-seven female participants aged 13-17 years with varying social anxiety levels completed a fMRI-based NF training task where they practiced cognitive reappraisal strategies, whilst receiving real-time feedback of DLPFC-amygdala connectivity. All participants completed measures of cognitive reappraisal and social approach-avoidance behaviour before and after NF training. Avoidance of happy faces was associated with greater social anxiety pre-training. Participants who were unable to acquire a more negative pattern of connectivity through NF training displayed significantly greater avoidance of happy faces at post-training compared to pre-training. These 'maladaptive' participants also reported significant decreases in re-appraisal ability from pre to post-training. In contrast, those who were able to acquire a more 'adaptive' connectivity pattern did not show these changes in social avoidance and re-appraisal. Future research could consider using strategies to improve the capacity of NF training to boost youth social-approach behaviour.

Shared yet dissociable neural codes across eye gaze, valence and expectation.

The direction of the eye gaze of others is a prominent social cue in primates and is important for communication1-11. Although gaze can signal threat and elicit anxiety6,12,13, it remains unclear whether it shares neural circuitry with stimulus value. Notably, gaze not only has valence, but can also serve as a predictor of the outcome of a social encounter, which can be either negative or positive2,8,12,13. Here we show that the neural codes for gaze and valence overlap in primates and that they involve two different mechanisms: one for the outcome and another for its expectation. Monkeys participated in the human intruder test13,14, in which a human participant had either a direct or averted gaze, interleaved with blocks of aversive and appetitive conditioning. We find that single neurons in the amygdala encode gaze15, whereas neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex encode the social context16, but not gaze. We identify a shared population in the amygdala for which the neural responses to direct and averted gaze parallel the responses to aversive and appetitive stimulus, respectively. Furthermore, we distinguish between two neural mechanisms-an overall-activity scheme that is used for gaze and the unconditioned stimulus, and a correlated-selectivity scheme that is used for gaze and the conditioned stimulus. These findings provide insights into the origins of the neural mechanisms that underlie the computations of both social interactions and valence, and could help to shed light on mechanisms that underlie social anxiety and the comorbidity between anxiety and impaired social interactions.

Avoidance of social threat: Evidence from eye movements during a public speaking challenge using 360°- video.

Social anxiety (SA) is thought to be maintained in part by avoidance of social threat, which exacerbates fear of negative evaluation. Yet, relatively little research has been conducted to evaluate the connection between social anxiety and attentional processes in realistic contexts. The current pilot study examined patterns of attention (eye movements) in a commonly feared social context - public speaking. Participants (N = 84) with a range of social anxiety symptoms gave an impromptu five-minute speech in an immersive 360°-video environment, while wearing a virtual reality headset equipped with eye-tracking hardware. We found evidence for the expected interaction between fear of public speaking and social threat (uninterested vs. interested audience members). Consistent with prediction, participants with greater fear of public speaking looked fewer times at uninterested members of the audience (high social threat) compared to interested members of the audience (low social threat) b = 0.418, p = 0.046, 95% CI [0.008, 0.829]. Analyses of attentional indices over the course of the speech revealed that the interaction between fear of public speaking and gaze on audience members was only significant in the first three-minutes. Our results provide support for theoretical models implicating avoidance of social threat as a maintaining factor in social anxiety. Future research is needed to test whether guided attentional training targeting in vivo attentional avoidance may improve clinical outcomes for those presenting with social anxiety.

Social anxiety and Internet gaming disorder: The role of motives and metacognitions.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: In recent years, Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has been recognized as a mental health problem. Although research has found that social anxiety, motives, the preference for online social interactions (POSI), and metacognitions about online gaming are independent predictors of IGD, less is known about their relative contribution to IGD. The aim of the current study was to model the relationship between social anxiety, motives, POSI, metacognitions about online gaming, and IGD. METHODS: Five hundred and forty three Italian gamers who play more than 7 h a week (mean age = 23.9 years; SD = 6.15 years; 82.5% males) were included in the study. The pattern of relationships specified by the theoretical model was examined through path analysis. RESULTS: Results showed that social anxiety was directly associated with four motives (escape, coping, fantasy, and recreation), POSI, and positive and negative metacognitions about online gaming, and IGD. The Sobel test showed that negative metacognitions about online gaming played the strongest mediating role in the relationship between social anxiety and IGD followed by escape, POSI, and positive metacognitions. The model accounted for 54% of the variance for IGD. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our findings show that, along with motives and POSI, metacognitions about online gaming may play an important role in the association between social anxiety and IGD. The clinical and preventive implications of these findings are discussed.

Training the anxious brain: using fMRI-based neurofeedback to change brain activity in adolescence.

Anxiety disorders are a leading cause of morbidity and entail a lot of costs. Adolescence is characterized by social fears and poor emotion regulation abilities which together increase the likelihood of the emergence of anxiety disorders. This emotion dysregulation is potentially caused by the emotion regulating brain areas, such as the prefrontal cortex and temporal cortex, that are still undergoing developmental changes throughout late adolescence. Recently, new approaches have used functional magnetic resonance imaging-based neurofeedback to help participants gain control over emotion regulation brain networks by receiving real-time feedback on their brain activity and to use effective emotion regulation abilities. In this review, we provide an overview of the developmental changes in the brain and the corresponding behavioural changes, and explore how these can be influenced during adolescence using neurofeedback. We conclude that recent studies show promising results that children and adolescents can self-regulate emotion regulation brain networks thereby supporting the development of effective emotion regulation abilities. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: Functional magnetic resonance imaging-based neurofeedback can be used for brain self-regulation in development. The emotion regulation networks play a key role in treating social anxiety with neurofeedback.

Memory and language impairments are associated with anxiety disorder severity in childhood.

Introduction Children with anxiety disorders have been suggested to possess deficits in verbal fluency, shifting and attention, with inconsistent results regarding working memory and its subcomponents. This study extends previous findings by analyzing the performance of children with anxiety disorders in a wide range of neuropsychological functions. Methods We evaluated 54 children with a primary diagnosis of an anxiety disorder according to diagnostic criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5) using subtests of a neuropsychological battery. The severity of anxiety disorders was assessed using the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale (PARS). We calculated the frequency of neuropsychological impairments (-1.5 standard deviation of the normative sample). Comparisons between groups were performed based on the severity of anxiety symptoms, as well as in the presence of one vs. more diagnoses of anxiety disorder. Results We found higher impairment in visuospatial working memory (23.1%), semantic memory (27.8%), oral language (35.4%) and word writing (44.4%) in anxious children. Moreover, children with higher anxiety severity presented lower performance in visuospatial working memory, inferential processing, word reading, writing comprehension, copied writing, and semantic verbal fluency (d = 0.49 to 0.96 [Cohen's d]). The higher the number of anxiety diagnoses, the lower the performance in episodic memory and oral and written language (d = 0.56 to 0.77). Conclusion Our data suggested the presence of memory (visuospatial working memory and semantic memory) and language deficits (oral and writing) in some children with an anxiety disorder. Severity and number of anxiety diagnoses were associated with lower performance in memory and language domains in childhood.

Time course of attentional bias in social anxiety: The effects of spatial frequencies and individual threats.

Hypervigilance and attentional bias to threat faces with low-spatial-frequency (LSF) information have been found in individuals with social anxiety. The vigilance-avoidance hypothesis posits that socially anxious individuals exhibit initial vigilance and later avoidance to threatening cues. However, the temporal dynamics of these two processes in response to various LSF threats in social anxiety remain unclear. In the current study, we presented faces containing anger, disgust, and fear in high and low spatial frequencies and compared the neural correlates with sensory perception and attention in individuals with high versus low social anxiety (HSA/LSA, n = 24). A visual search task was used to investigate the attentional effects of threats and spatial frequencies, and event-related potentials, particularly, the visual components of P1 and P250, were measured to index visual perceptual and attentional processes, respectively. We found that HSA individuals showed pronounced P1 and reduced P250 to LSF (vs. HSF) faces, regardless of emotion type, suggesting a general pattern of initial vigilance and later avoidance to LSF faces in social anxiety. Furthermore, while LSA individuals showed enhanced P250 to both fear and disgust (vs. neutral) faces, HSA individuals showed pronounced P250 to disgust faces alone. Our results, thus, elucidate the temporal profile of early vigilance and later avoidance in social anxiety, highlighting its broad implication for all faces and predominance in the low spatial frequency. Considering individual threats, our results demonstrate specific attentional avoidance of fear faces in social anxiety.

Memory and language impairments are associated with anxiety disorder severity in childhood

Abstract Introduction Children with anxiety disorders have been suggested to possess deficits in verbal fluency, shifting and attention, with inconsistent results regarding working memory and its subcomponents. This study extends previous findings by analyzing the performance of children with anxiety disorders in a wide range of neuropsychological functions. Methods We evaluated 54 children with a primary diagnosis of an anxiety disorder according to diagnostic criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5) using subtests of a neuropsychological battery. The severity of anxiety disorders was assessed using the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale (PARS). We calculated the frequency of neuropsychological impairments (-1.5 standard deviation of the normative sample). Comparisons between groups were performed based on the severity of anxiety symptoms, as well as in the presence of one vs. more diagnoses of anxiety disorder. Results We found higher impairment in visuospatial working memory (23.1%), semantic memory (27.8%), oral language (35.4%) and word writing (44.4%) in anxious children. Moreover, children with higher anxiety severity presented lower performance in visuospatial working memory, inferential processing, word reading, writing comprehension, copied writing, and semantic verbal fluency (d = 0.49 to 0.96 [Cohen's d]). The higher the number of anxiety diagnoses, the lower the performance in episodic memory and oral and written language (d = 0.56 to 0.77). Conclusion Our data suggested the presence of memory (visuospatial working memory and semantic memory) and language deficits (oral and writing) in some children with an anxiety disorder. Severity and number of anxiety diagnoses were associated with lower performance in memory and language domains in childhood.

Mental Imagery in Social Anxiety in Children and Young People: A Systematic Review.

Current cognitive models of social anxiety disorder (SAD) in adults indicate that negative self-images play a pivotal role in maintaining the disorder. However, little is known about the role of negative imagery in the maintenance of social anxiety for children and young people. We systematically reviewed studies that have investigated the association between imagery and social anxiety in children and young people. Four databases were searched for 'social anxiety' and related terms (including 'social phobia' and 'performance anxiety') combined with 'imagery', 'representation*', and 'observer perspective'. The nine studies that met the inclusion criteria provided some evidence that children and young people with higher social anxiety report more negative, observer's perspective images, and some evidence to support the cognitive models of SAD's conceptualisation of imagery. Only two studies included samples with pre-adolescent children. The literature is limited by a number of methodological issues, including inconsistencies in, and a lack of good psychometric measures for, imagery in children and young people. More conclusive evidence is needed to develop significant and robust conclusions.