title: Attentional bias to threat in children at-risk for emotional disorders: role of gender and type of maternal emotional disorder.
abstract: Previous studies suggested that threat biases underlie familial risk for emotional disorders in children. However, major questions remain concerning the moderating role of the offspring gender and the type of parental emotional disorder on this association. This study addresses these questions in a large sample of boys and girls. Participants were 6-12 years old (at screening) typically developing children participating in the High Risk Cohort Study for Psychiatric Disorders (n = 1280; 606 girls, 674 boys). Children were stratified according to maternal emotional disorder (none; mood disorder; anxiety disorder; comorbid anxiety/mood disorder) and gender. Attention biases were assessed using a dot-probe paradigm with threat, happy and neutral faces. A significant gender-by-parental emotional disorder interaction predicted threat bias, independent of anxiety and depression symptoms in children. Daughters of mothers with an emotional disorder showed increased attention to threat compared with daughters of disorder-free mothers, irrespective of the type of maternal emotion disorder. In contrast, attention bias to threat in boys only occurred in mothers with a non-comorbid mood disorder. No group differences were found for biases for happy-face cues. Gender and type of maternal emotional disorder predict attention bias in disorder-free children. This highlights the need for longitudinal research to clarify whether this pattern of threat-attention bias in children relates to the risk of developing anxiety and mood disorders later in life.
authors.affiliation: Hospital de Clınicas de Porto Alegre, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Room 2202, Porto Alegre, 90035-003, Brazil. rachelmontagner@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Montagner
authors.affiliation: Southampton University, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mogg
authors.affiliation: Southampton University, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Brendan P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Bradley
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Research Program, Bethesda, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Pine
authors.affiliation: Hospital de Clınicas de Porto Alegre, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Room 2202, Porto Alegre, 90035-003, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marcelo S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Czykiel
authors.affiliation: São Paulo University, São Paulo, Brazil.|National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents (INPD, CNPq), São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Euripedes Constantino
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Miguel
authors.affiliation: Hospital de Clınicas de Porto Alegre, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Room 2202, Porto Alegre, 90035-003, Brazil.|São Paulo University, São Paulo, Brazil.|National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents (INPD, CNPq), São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Luis A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Rohde
authors.affiliation: Hospital de Clınicas de Porto Alegre, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Room 2202, Porto Alegre, 90035-003, Brazil.|National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents (INPD, CNPq), São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Gisele G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Manfro
authors.affiliation: Hospital de Clınicas de Porto Alegre, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Room 2202, Porto Alegre, 90035-003, Brazil.|National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents (INPD, CNPq), São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Giovanni A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Salum
mesh_terms: D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D000070379:Attentional Bias / Q000502:physiology*; D001938:Brazil; D002648:Child; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D012306:Risk; D012737:Sex Factors
keywords: Anxiety; Attention; Depression; Mother–child; Threat