Concreteness of positive, negative, and neutral repetitive thinking about the future.

Consistent with assertions that the adaptiveness of repetitive thinking is influenced by both its valence and style, Stöber (e.g., Stöber & Borkovec, 2002) has argued that worry is characterized by a reduced concreteness of thought content and that the resulting abstractness contributes to its inhibition of some aspects of anxious responding.

Distinct neural signatures of threat learning in adolescents and adults.

Most teenage fears subside with age, a change that may reflect brain maturation in the service of refined fear learning. Whereas adults clearly demarcate safe situations from real dangers, attenuating fear to the former but not the latter, adolescents' immaturity in prefrontal cortex function may limit their ability to form clear-cut threat categories, allowing pervasive fears to manifest. Here we developed a discrimination learning paradigm that assesses the ability to categorize threat from safety cues to test these hypotheses on age differences in neurodevelopment.

Common and distinct amygdala-function perturbations in depressed vs anxious adolescents.

Context: Few studies directly compare amygdala function in depressive and anxiety disorders. Data from longitudinal research emphasize the need for such studies in adolescents.

Objective: To compare amygdala response to varying attention and emotion conditions among adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) or anxiety disorders, relative to adolescents with no psychopathology.

Autism spectrum disorder scale scores in pediatric mood and anxiety disorders.

Objective: To compare scores on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptom scales in healthy youths and youths with mood or anxiety disorders.

Method: A total of 352 youths were recruited (107 healthy participants, 88 with an anxiety disorder, 32 with major depressive disorder, 62 with bipolar disorder, and 63 with a mood disorder characterized by severe nonepisodic irritability). Participants received structured psychiatric interviews and parent ratings on at least one of three ASD symptom scales: Children's Communication Checklist, Social Communication Questionnaire, and Social Responsiveness Scale.

Assessing gene-environment interactions on anxiety symptom subtypes across childhood and adolescence.

Consistent evidence shows both genetic and stress-related risks on child and adolescent anxiety, yet few studies have considered the degree to which genetic effects are moderated by stress (gene-environment interaction). We used longitudinal data from both a child and adolescent sample of twins to examine three novel issues on the presence of gene-environment interaction on anxiety symptoms. First, we assessed moderation of genetic risks on anxiety symptoms by negative life events in each age group.