Intergenerational transmission of threat sensitivity as an risk marker for psychopathology in young children

PROJECT SUMMARY Characterizing neurocognitive risk parameters in children is critical to the study of developmental psychopathology and paves the way for novel treatment and interventions. Heightened threat sensitivity – the recognition, interpretation, and response to real or potential threat cues in the environment – is a strong neurocognitive predictor of anxiety risk. However, little is known about how heightened threat sensitivity develops and is maintained across time. The limited extant work suggests parental characteristics and behaviors influence children's anxiety risk and may shape the development of children's threat sensitivity. However, we lack knowledge about intergenerational influences on the transmission of heightened threat sensitivity. The current study uses a longitudinal intergenerational framework to identify factors that influence the neural, biological, and behavioral correlates of threat sensitivity across time and generations. The current project will be the first intergenerational study of the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (PNC), a racially-diverse cohort of ~10,000 participants assessed at age 8–21 between 2009-2012, with many participants becoming parents in the last 5 years. In 300 mother-child dyads (children aged 4-8 years), we use a multimethod assessment framework with psychiatric (clinical interview, self-report), behavioral (computer tasks), observational (parent-child interactions), neural (electroencephalogram: EEG), and physiological (electrocardiogram: respiratory sinus arrhythmia) measures to examine the pathways underlying longitudinal and intergenerational influences on threat sensitivity and anxiety. First, we leverage data from the original PNC to examine factors that influence the presence of a multimethod threat sensitivity construct in mothers, 10- years later, and examine longitudinal links between threat sensitivity and anxiety symptomatology. Second, we focus on the child's threat sensitivity and anxiety, investigating the intergenerational influence of maternal threat sensitivity and, in an available subsample, the influence of paternal/secondary caregiver (n=200) threat sensitivity, on the child's threat sensitivity and anxiety. The study also examines the role of environmental threat exposures (e.g., trauma, discrimination, and poverty) on individual differences in threat sensitivity, with the hypothesis that increased threat exposures will increase susceptibility to abnormal threat processes. Lastly, we investigate a possible mechanism underlying the intergenerational transmission of threat sensitivity: negative parental communication. We will examine real-time transmission of threat through parental communication (e.g., verbal threat promotion, expressed anxiety) across a series of parent-discussion tasks. This project aligns with NIMH programmatic goals by charting mental health symptoms and mechanisms of risk across the lifespan. Results from the multimethod approach will inform multisystem mechanisms of intervention and prevention at the level of the parent and child. Our proposed expansion of the PNC to a longitudinal intergenerational cohort is an unprecedented opportunity to transform knowledge on anxiety risk.