A biomarker of anxiety in children and adolescents: A review focusing on the error-related negativity (ERN) and anxiety across development

Abstract

Overall, 22 studies were included in the current review. A number of patterns emerged, including: 1.) The ERN is enhanced in clinically anxious children at all ages (6-18 years old), regardless of the task used to measure the ERN. 2.) Studies focusing on anxiety symptoms and temperamental fear suggest that the relationship between the ERN and normative anxiety may change across development. 3.) The ERN can predict the onset of anxiety disorders across different developmental periods. 4.) The ERN relates to other markers of risk for anxiety (e.g., aversive startle potentiation) in children and adolescents.

The development of the error-related negativity in large sample of adolescent females: Associations with anxiety symptoms

“…This is consistent with previous work suggesting that a regression-based approach may be superior to a subtraction-based approach in creating difference scores between conditions (Meyer et al, 2017). Future studies should utilize regression-based, as well as subtraction-based approaches, to further explore this possibility.…”

“…While a substantial amount of research has found the ERN to be increased in anxious individuals (Cavanagh & Shackman, 2014; Meyer, 2016; Alexandria Meyer, 2017), few studies have examined the specific anxious phenotype that the ERN indexes. Results from the current study suggest that social anxiety symptoms had the most robust relationship with the ERN in a sample of females during a core risk period.…”

“…We did not include anxiety disorder diagnostic status in the current study. However, other work does suggest that the ERN is increased in individuals with anxiety disorders (Kujawa et al, 2016; Alexandria Meyer, 2017; A. Meyer, 2017; Anna Weinberg et al, 2012; Anna Weinberg, Olvet, & Hajcak, 2010; A. Weinberg et al, 2012) and thereby may be a useful diagnostic marker.…”

Impact of pubertal timing and depression on error‐related brain activity in anxious youth

“…This finding builds on prior work linking puberty stage with an enhanced ERN (Gorday & Meyer, 2018), demonstrating that pubertal timing may provide another layer of specificity into how developmental changes impact the ERN. Our results also replicate prior work (for a review see;(Meyer, 2017)), that controlling for depressive symptoms, child and adolescent anxiety disorders are marked by an increased ERN. Depressive symptoms attenuated these effects, both amongst early developing and anxious youth, such that increasing depressive symptoms were associated with a reduced ERN (Weinberg, Meyer, et al, 2016).…”

“…An enhanced ERN is robustly associated with anxiety disorders in adults (Cavanagh & Shackman, 2015; Moser et al, 2013), and increasingly among youth (Meyer, 2017). Consequently, the question of when and how this neural sensitivity develops becomes important to understand in what way this biomarker of anxiety differs across typical development.…”