Intolerance of uncertainty and threat generalization: a replication and extension

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a transdiagnostic risk factor for internalizing disorders. Prior work has found that IU may be associated with either increased reactivity to threat or, alternatively, with decreased differential responding between threat and nonthreat/safety cues (i.e., threat generalization). For example, work by Morriss, Macdonald, & van Reekum (2016) found that higher IU was associated with increased threat generalization during acquisition (using skin conductance response (SCR)), as well as less differentiation between acquisition and extinction (using subjective uneasiness ratings). Here, three labs attempted direct and conceptual replications of Morriss, Macdonald, et al. (2016). Results showed that the direct replication failed, despite being conducted at the same lab site as the original study; moreover, in contrast to Morriss, Macdonald, et al. (2016), the direct replication found that higher IU was associated with greater SCR discrimination between threat and safety cues (across acquisition and extinction), as well as greater differences in uneasiness ratings between acquisition and extinction. Nonetheless, in the conceptual replications, higher IU was associated with greater threat generalization, as well as less discrimination between acquisition and extinction, as measured using SCR. Higher IU was also associated with larger late positive potentials to threat versus safety cues during extinction—results that mirror those observed by Morriss, Macdonald, et al. (2016) using SCR. Results are discussed with regards to the challenge involved in defining a successful replication attempt, the benefits of collaborative replication and the use and reliability of multiple measures

Maternal Report and In Home Assessment of Screen Exposure and their Association with Sleep Quality and Language Development in 6-month-old Infants

Sleep plays a critical role in infants’ cognitive, language and socioemotional development, as well as physical growth (Ednick, M., et. al 2009). A growing body of literature suggests that exposure to electronic screens in infancy is associated with reduced sleep at night (Vijakkhana, N. et. al 2015 & Ribner, A.D et. al 2019). Previous studies have also reported that infants exposed to excessive screen time may have reduced home language input, and may themselves produce fewer vocalizations (Christakis, D. A. et. al 2009). Although evidence suggests that screentime is associated with adverse outcomes in sleep and language development in preschool-aged and older children (Janssen, X., et. al 2020; Hale, L., et. al 2015; Madigan, S., et. al 2020), few studies have examined these associations in young infants. Moreover, prior studies have primarily assessed children’s screen exposure through self-report questionnaires (Bergmann, C., et. al 2022; Cheung, C. H., et. al 2017; Tomopoulos, S., et. al 2010). However, measuring screen exposure through an in-home assessment is important because it captures a more realistic snapshot, and minimizes self-report biases. To address these gaps, the goal of this pre-registration is to examine associations between parent-reported and LENA-derived screen time, infant sleep quality, and the home language environment (LENA) in 6-month-old infants

Childhood maltreatment is associated with increased neural response to ambiguous threatening facial expressions in adulthood: Evidence from the late positive potential

Childhood maltreatment increases lifetime vulnerability for psychopathology. One proposed mechanism for this association is that early maltreatment increases vigilance for and attention to subtle threat cues, persisting outside of the environment in which maltreatment occurs. To test this possibility, the present study examined neural responses to ambiguous and nonambiguous threatening facial expressions in a sample of 25 adults reporting a history of low-to-moderate levels of abuse in childhood and 46 reporting no or low levels of childhood maltreatment. The measure of neural response used was the late positive potential (LPP), a neural marker of sustained attention to motivationally salient information that is sensitive to subtle variation in emotional content. Participants passively viewed angry-neutral and fearful-neutral face blends and rated emotional intensity for each face. In the maltreated group, as fearful faces increased in emotional intensity, the LPP similarly increased, suggesting increased sensitivity to subtle variation in threatening content. Moreover, the LPP at each level of emotional intensity was not related to current symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, contrary to our hypotheses, adults with a history of abuse did not rate angry or fearful faces as more threatening, nor did they exhibit a larger LPP to angry faces, compared to controls. These findings suggest that childhood maltreatment may be associated with increased sensitivity to ambiguous threatening information in adulthood (c) Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2018

Prenatal family income, but not parental education, is associated with resting brain activity in 1-month-old infants

Abstract Childhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with disparities in development and health, possibly through adaptations in children’s brain function. However, it is not clear how early in development such neural adaptations might emerge. This study examined whether prenatal family socioeconomic status, operationalized as family income and average years of parental education, prospectively predicts individual differences in infant resting electroencephalography (EEG; theta, alpha, beta, and gamma power) at approximately 1 month of age (N = 160). Infants of mothers reporting lower family income showed more lower-frequency (theta) and less higher-frequency (beta and gamma) power. These associations held when adjusting for other prenatal and postnatal experiences, as well as infant demographic and health-related factors. In contrast, parental education was not significantly associated with infant EEG power in any frequency band. These data suggest that lower prenatal family income is associated with developmental differences in brain function that are detectable within the first month of life