Neurocognitive Processing of Gun Violence in the Media: Implications for Adolescent Anxiety, Depression, and Racial Inequities

Exposure to media depicting gun violence against young people, including mass shootings and police-involved shootings of Black people, has been linked to decreased perceptions of personal safety and increased anxiety and depression symptoms among adolescents. Black adolescents may also experience profound racial stress and trauma following vicarious exposures to police-involved shootings. Yet, exceedingly little research has examined how the adolescent brain is impacted by almost daily access to gun violence broadcasts during this period of high neural plasticity and whether these exposures lead to experience-dependent alterations in neurocognitive markers of vigilance, as well as increases in media consumption and anxiety/depression symptoms. We hypothesize that neurodevelopmental shifts in the resolution of competition between stimulus-driven vs. goal-directed attention primes the development of vigilance for media coverage of gun violence. This, in turn, perpetuates a distressing cycle where hypervigilant teens consume more media about gun violence events, often at the expense of engaging in competing mood-boosting activities. And by virtue of self-identifying with Black victims of police-involved shootings, Black adolescents may be at even greater risk through these pathways. To assess the resolution of competing visuocortical components of vigilance, we will utilize steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs), derived from EEG, as a brain-based assessment that will enhance precision and reliability compared to conventional behavioral or neural measures. A novel SSVEP paradigm, co-designed with a teen community advisory board to ensure cultural relevance, will evaluate goal-directed attention in the presence of stimulus-driven threat stimuli selected from past media broadcasts. The study will enroll a community sample of 250 adolescents (ages 13-17 at baseline; 50% identifying as Black; 50% assigned female at birth) and follow them every six months for eighteen months during this critical period of risk for vigilance and the development of depression and anxiety. Vigilance (indexed by SSVEPs), media consumption of gun violence events, and symptoms of anxiety and depression will be assessed at each study visit, and daily diary assessments will be conducted in the 7 days preceding each SSVEP assessment, as well as in the 7 days following significant national or local gun violence events. A primary aim is to evaluate the impact of vigilance and media consumption on prospective changes in adolescents' anxiety and depression symptoms. We will also investigate potential racial inequities, with a focus on racial identity as a moderator of the association between vigilance and media consumption of police-involved shootings and subsequent anxiety and depression. Analyses will also examine directional effects between vigilance and media consumption to determine if a feedback loop may perpetuate these biases over time. This study will provide novel, integrative insights into the neurocognitive sequalae of media exposure to gun violence events. Findings will inform brain-based interventions to reduce anxiety and depression in adolescents, particularly for Black adolescents experiencing racial stress and trauma.