Error-Related Brain Activity Moderates the Association Between Interpersonal Stressor Exposure and Both Current and Future Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescent Girls

Anxiety disorders are one of the most common forms of psychopathology and often emerge in childhood and adolescence. The error-related negativity (ERN) is a potential neural vulnerability marker for anxiety. Although some studies have indicated that the ERN interacts with stressful life events to predict anxiety, these studies have only examined natural disasters or adult life stress, and it is thus unclear whether this vulnerability marker moderates the association between early life stressors and the development of psychopathology. To investigate, we assessed the past year stressor exposure of 180 nine- to 17-year-old girls using the Stress and Adversity Inventory for Adolescents, and self-report anxiety symptoms at baseline and 3 years later. At baseline, participants also completed a flanker task while electroencephalography was recorded to measure the ERN. As hypothesized, the ERN moderated the association between chronic interpersonal stressor exposure and both concurrent and 3-year follow-up anxiety symptoms. Specifically, greater chronic interpersonal stress was related to more concurrent and future anxiety symptoms, and this association was strongest in the context of a larger ERN. Error-related brain activity is thus an important moderating factor in the relation between chronic interpersonal stressor exposure and the development of anxiety symptoms across adolescence.