title: Neural mechanisms of emotion regulation in childhood anxiety.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The present study was designed to examine the cortical processes that mediate cognitive regulation in response to emotion-eliciting stimuli in anxious children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded from clinically anxious children (n = 29) and typically developing children (n = 34). Event-related potential components were recorded while children performed a go/no-go task using facial stimuli depicting angry, calm, and happy expressions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Anxious children had significantly greater posterior P1 and frontal N2 amplitudes, components associated with attention/arousal and cognitive control, respectively, than typically developing children. Anxious children also had significantly greater error-related negativities and correct-response negativities relative to typically developing children. For the anxious group only, there were no differences in neural activation between face (emotion) types or trial (Go vs. No-go) types. A regression analysis revealed that No-go N2 amplitudes for calm faces predicted self-reported anxiety levels.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Anxious children appeared to show increased cortical activation regardless of the emotional content of the stimuli. Anxious children also showed greater medial-frontal activity regardless of task demands and response accuracy. Taken together, these findings suggest indiscriminate cortical processes that may underlie the hypervigilant regulatory style seen in clinically anxious individuals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. kathryn.hum@utoronto.ca
authors.forename: Kathryn M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Hum
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Manassis
authors.forename: Marc D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Lewis
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D015897:Comorbidity; D004569:Electroencephalography; D056348:Emotional Intelligence / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted