Developmental Changes in the Association Between Cognitive Control and Anxiety

Abstract

Anxiety has been associated with reliance on reactive (stimulus-driven/reflexive) control strategies in response to conflict. However, this conclusion rests primarily on indirect evidence. Few studies utilize tasks that dissociate the use of reactive (‘just in time’) vs. proactive (anticipatory/preparatory) cognitive control strategies in response to conflict, and none examine children diagnosed with anxiety. The current study utilizes the AX-CPT, which dissociates these two types of cognitive control, to examine cognitive control in youth (ages 8–18) with and without an anxiety diagnosis (n = 56). Results illustrate that planful behavior, consistent with using a proactive strategy, varies by both age and anxiety symptoms. Young children (ages 8–12 years) with high anxiety exhibit significantly less planful behavior than similarly-aged children with low anxiety. These findings highlight the importance of considering how maturation influences relations between anxiety and performance on cognitive-control tasks and have implications for understanding the pathophysiology of anxiety in children.

The relationship between emotional intelligence, anxiety, and performance in physical education and sport students

“…According to our findings, somatic anxiety was associated with performance in a negative direction which is consistent with the literature (Mercader-Rubio et al, 2023). However, there was no significant association between cognitive anxiety and performance in this study, as in the previous study (Filippi et al, 2022). The level of competitive anxiety among athletes differs according to individuals (Hanin, 2003).…”

To snack or not to snack: Using fNIRS to link inhibitory control to functional connectivity in the toddler brain

“…Individual differences in Snack Delay task performance are predictive of familial attentional vulnerabilities, and have been demonstrated to mediate the detrimental effects of crying, feeding, and sleeping issues on attention regulation throughout development (Baumann et al., 2019; Pauli‐Pott et al., 2014). Generally, the literature documents the relationship between early IC behaviors and their neural correlates within adolescent and adult populations, specifically linking it to externalized behavioral issues and clinical outcomes such as anxiety in adulthood (Baumann et al., 2019; Filippi et al., 2021; Friedman et al., 2011; Lamm et al., 2014; Neppl et al., 2020). Despite it's predictive relationship with important outcomes, the literature on toddlers has not yet examined the neural underpinnings of IC (Paulus et al., 2015).…”

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

“…Consequently, d ′ context assesses the degree to which an individual successfully inhibits the prepotent response on BX trials relative to correct engagement of the prepotent response on AX trials. Participants’ AX-CPT data were excluded from analysis if the task was incomplete or if accuracy on non-A-cue non-X-probe trials was below 70% ( n = 19 excluded, or 12.5% of participants; Filippi et al, 2022).…”