Positive and Negative Emotionality at Age 3 Predicts Change in Frontal EEG Asymmetry across Early Childhood.

Depression is characterized by low positive emotionality (PE) and high negative emotionality (NE), as well as asymmetries in resting electroencephalography (EEG) alpha power. Moreover, frontal asymmetry has itself been linked to PE, NE, and related constructs. However, little is known about associations of temperamental PE and NE with resting EEG asymmetries in young children and whether this association changes as a function of development.

Transdiagnostic factors and pathways to multifinality: The error-related negativity predicts whether preschool irritability is associated with internalizing versus externalizing symptoms at age 9.

There is increasing interest among developmental psychopathologists in broad transdiagnostic factors that give rise to a wide array of clinical presentations (multifinality), but little is known about how these processes lead to particular psychopathological manifestations over the course of development. We examined whether individual differences in the error-related negativity (ΔERN), a neural indicator of error monitoring, predicts whether early persistent irritability, a prototypical transdiagnostic construct, is associated with later internalizing versus externalizing outcomes. When children were 3 years old, mothers were interviewed about children's persistent irritability and completed questionnaires about their children's psychopathology.

Developmental changes in electroencephalographic frontal asymmetry in young children at risk for depression.

Background: A number of studies have reported that depression is associated with lower relative left frontal activity in the alpha band (i.e. frontal asymmetry, or FA), as measured by electroencephalogram.

Enhanced error-related brain activity in children predicts the onset of anxiety disorders between the ages of 6 and 9.

Considering that anxiety disorders frequently begin before adulthood and often result in chronic impairment, it is important to characterize the developmental pathways leading to the onset of clinical anxiety. Identifying neural biomarkers that can predict the onset of anxiety in childhood may increase our understanding of the etiopathogenesis of anxiety, as well as inform intervention and prevention strategies. An event-related potential (ERP), the error-related negativity (ERN), has been proposed as a biomarker of risk for anxiety and has previously been associated with anxiety in both adults and children.