Anxiety symptoms in young children are associated with a maladaptive neurobehavioral profile of error responding

Background Childhood anxiety symptoms have been linked with alterations in cognitive control and error-processing, yet the diverse findings on neural markers of anxiety in young children, varying by severity and developmental stages, suggest a need for a wider perspective. Integrating new neural markers with established ones like the Error-Related Negativity (ERN), the Error Positivity (Pe) and frontal theta, could clarify this association. Error-Related Alpha Suppression (ERAS) is a recently proposed index of post-error attentional engagement not yet explored in anxious children. Methods To identify neurobehavioral profiles of anxiety in young children integrating ERAS with the ERN, Pe, frontal theta, and post-error performance indicators, we employed K-means clustering as an unsupervised multi-metric approach. For this, we first aimed to confirm the presence and scalp-distribution of ERAS in young children. We performed event-related potentials and spectral analysis of EEG data collected during a Go/NoGo task (Zoo Task) completed by 181 children (ages 4-7; 103 girls) sampled across the clinical-to-nonclinical range of anxiety severity using the Child Behavior Checklist. Results Results confirmed ERAS, showing lower post-error alpha power, maximal suppression at occipital sites, and less ERAS in younger children. K-means clustering revealed that high anxiety and younger age is associated with reduction in ERAS and frontal theta, less negative ERN, enlarged Pe, more post-error slowing and reduced post-error accuracy. Conclusions Our findings indicate a link between ERAS, maladaptive neural mechanisms of attention elicited by errors, and anxiety in young children, suggesting anxiety may arise from or interfere with attention and error processing.