Social and Neural Pathways Linking Parental Anxiety with Youths' Daily Emotions

About This Grant

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Parental anxiety is a well-known risk factor for youth anxiety during preadolescence, with social experiences contributing to this intergenerational transmission. Parental threat communication, including fearful and negative verbal and nonverbal expressions, is a potential social pathway linking parental anxiety with child anxiety. Our preliminary findings based on trait-based measures support this view, showing that parental threat communication links parental anxiety with children’s anxiety. However, two knowledge gaps remain: 1) whether parental anxiety extends to children's daily emotions in their real-life contexts as mediated via observed parental threat communication, and 2) which neural mechanisms underlie these associations. Parental threat communication can amplify children’s threat sensitivity by emphasizing the salience of threats, given evidence that parents can either buffer or amplify children’s neural responses to threats. Specifically, parents can facilitate children’s Error Monitoring, the brain’s ability to detect mistakes, typically indexed by the Error- Related Negativity (ERN) Event-Related Potential. Heightened error monitoring, particularly under stressful situations, is considered a potential biomarker of anxiety, as it correlates with levels of anxiety and predicts the onset of anxiety disorders. Our preliminary findings indicate that parental traits predict children’s error monitoring under social evaluation, and in young children, increased error monitoring in parental presence has been uniquely associated with anxiety. Although preadolescence is a critical time for the onset of anxiety problems, it is unknown if parental amplification of error monitoring is linked with children’s anxiety and daily emotions during this time. This project will examine (a) whether parental threat communication mediates the paths from parental anxiety to children’s anxiety and daily emotions, (b) whether parental threat communication mediates the link between parental anxiety and children’s error monitoring in parental presence, and (c) whether children’s error monitoring in parental presence is associated with anxiety, and daily emotions in real- life contexts. Children (ages 9 to 12, N = 140) and their parents will complete online questionnaires and participate in a lab visit. Parental threat communication will be observed during a modified TRIER social stress task. EEG will be recorded while children complete a Flanker task twice: in parental presence and alone. EEG data will be analyzed to compute parental modulation of children’s error monitoring. Following the lab visit, children will complete a 10-day Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) procedure to report their daily emotions. This study will make a significant contribution to understanding the parental behaviors and neural processes that link parental anxiety with children’s daily emotions, providing potential targets for family-based interventions. I will also receive in-depth training in (a) EMAs, (b) ERP and EEG time-frequency methods, (c) basic, translational, and affective clinical neuroscience, and (d) professional development in clinical research with youth and families to inform family-focused interventions.