Associations between lifetime stress exposure and the error-related negativity (ERN) differ based on stressor characteristics and exposure timing in young adults

Neural and behavioral dynamics of error processing under chronic stress in healthy young adults

Chronic stress has a negative impact on cognitive function and physical health, particularly impairing cognitive control function. This study aimed to investigate the effects of chronic stress on error processing, specifically error monitoring and post-error adjustment. We assessed 61 healthy college students (32 females, 29 males, age: 18.80 ± 0.68 years) using the Student-Life Stress Inventory (SLSI) and a four-choice Flanker task with response-stimulus intervals (RSIs) of 200 ms, 700 ms, and 1500 ms to investigate the temporal dynamics of error monitoring and characteristics of different phases of post-error processing under chronic stress. Results revealed that higher chronic stress levels were associated with smaller post-error slowing (PES) and larger post-error accuracy decrease (PEAD). Dividing participants into high-chronic stress (n = 30) and low-chronic stress (n = 31) groups, we found that the ΔPe amplitude at 200 ms RSI in the low-stress group was significantly larger than that in the high-stress group, indicating that chronic stress impairs the recognition of error responses. At 200 ms RSI, the PEAD in the high-stress group was significantly larger than in the low-stress group. This suggests that high levels of chronic stress impair early-stage post-error adjustment processing. The study highlights that chronic stress impairs error monitoring and early post-error processing, revealing features of continuous processing stages in behavioral monitoring under chronic stress.

Adversity and error-monitoring: Effects of emotional context

This study tested whether self-reports of childhood adversity would predict altered error processing under emotional versus non-emotional task conditions. N = 99 undergraduates completed two selective attention tasks, a traditional color-word Stroop task and a modified task using emotional words, while EEG was recorded. Participants also completed self-report measures of adverse and positive childhood experiences, executive functioning, depression, current stress, and emotion regulation. Reports of adversity were robustly correlated with self-reported challenges in executive functioning, even when controlling for self-reported depression and stress, but adversity was not correlated with task performance. With regard to neural markers of error processing, adversity predicted an enhanced error-related negativity and blunted error-positivity, but only during the emotion-word blocks of the task. Moreover, error-related changes in alpha oscillations were predicted by adversity, in a pattern that suggested less error responsiveness in alpha patterns during the emotion block, compared to the color block, among participants with higher adversity. Overall, results indicate alterations in error monitoring associated with adversity, such that in an emotional context, initial error detection is enhanced and sustained error processing is blunted, even in the absence of overt performance changes.

Cumulative stressor exposure predicts menstrual cycle affective changes in a transdiagnostic outpatient sample with past-month suicidal ideation

BACKGROUND

Affective responses to the menstrual cycle vary widely. Some individuals experience severe symptoms like those with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, while others have minimal changes. The reasons for these differences are unclear, but prior studies suggest stressor exposure may play a role. However, research in at-risk psychiatric samples is lacking.

METHODS

In a large clinical sample, we conducted a prospective study of how lifetime stressors relate to degree of affective change across the cycle. 114 outpatients with past-month suicidal ideation (SI) provided daily ratings (n = 6187) of negative affect and SI across 1-3 menstrual cycles. Participants completed the Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN), which measures different stressor exposures (i.e. interpersonal loss, physical danger) throughout the life course, including before and after menarche. Multilevel polynomial growth models tested the relationship between menstrual cycle time and symptoms, moderated by stressor exposure.

RESULTS

Greater lifetime stressor exposure predicted a more pronounced perimenstrual increase in active SI, along with marginally significant similar patterns for negative affect and passive SI. Additionally, pre-menarche stressors significantly increased the cyclicity of active SI compared to post-menarche stressors. Exposure to more interpersonal loss stressors predicted greater perimenstrual symptom change of negative affect, passive SI and active SI. Exploratory item-level analyses showed that lifetime stressors moderated a more severe perimenstrual symptom trajectory for mood swings, anger/irritability, rejection sensitivity, and interpersonal conflict.

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that greater lifetime stressor exposure may lead to heightened emotional reactivity to ovarian hormone fluctuations, elevating the risk of psychopathology.

Effects of institutional rearing and foster care intervention on error monitoring and externalizing behaviors in adolescence

Children raised in institutions display deficits in error monitoring and increased psychopathology. Deficits in error monitoring might be a pathway for the emergence of psychopathology in previously institutionalized adolescents. Here we investigate the impact of early psychosocial deprivation and a foster care intervention on error monitoring and its association with internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in adolescence A modified Flanker task assessed error monitoring in 16-year-old adolescents from the BEIP. The ERN and mid-frontal theta power were computed as indices of neural responses of error monitoring. Adolescents who experienced early institutional rearing and were subsequently placed into foster care showed comparable behavioral (RT, accuracy) and neural (ERN, theta power) measures of error monitoring to their never institutionalized peers; whereas adolescents who received care as usual showed both perturbed behavioral performance and neural responses. Longer duration of institutional care was associated with a reduction in mid-frontal theta power. The results further demonstrated a link between error monitoring as measured by ERN and mid-frontal theta and externalizing-ADHD behavioral problems in adolescents who continued receiving care as usual. The results highlight the long-term positive impact of early foster care placement and perturbations due to prolonged institutional care in neural responses of error monitoring.

Childhood trauma predicts blunted error monitoring in adulthood: An event-related potential study

Abuse and neglect have detrimental consequences on emotional and cognitive functioning during childhood and adolescence, including error monitoring, which is a critical aspect of cognition that has been implicated in certain internalizing and externalizing psychopathologies. It is unclear, however, whether (a) childhood trauma has effects on error monitoring and, furthermore whether, (b) error monitoring mediates the relation between childhood trauma and psychopathology in adulthood. To this end, in a large sample of young adults (ages 18-30) who were oversampled for psychopathology (N = 390), the present study assessed relations between childhood trauma and error-related negativity (ERN), which is a widely used neurophysiological indicator of error monitoring. Cumulative childhood trauma predicted ERN blunting, as did two specific types of traumas: sexual abuse and emotional neglect. Furthermore, the ERN partially mediated the effects of cumulative childhood trauma and emotional neglect on externalizing-related symptoms. Future studies should further examine the relations between childhood trauma and error monitoring in adulthood, which can help to inform intervention approaches.

Performance monitoring moderates the relationship between stress and negative affect in response to an exam stressor

The present longitudinal study examined the role of performance monitoring in the relationships between stress (both stress change and chronic stress) and negative affect to a real-life stressor-final exam among 60 undergraduates. Participants firstly completed a Go/No-Go task in the laboratory with electroencephalogram recordings. At T1 (31 days before the final exam), participants reported their chronic perceived stress. Then, with the daily dairy method, their daily stress level and negative affect were collected for three consecutive days. At T2 (three days before the final exam), the 3-day daily dairy was repeated. Results showed that performance monitoring, as measured by behavioral adjustments and electrophysiological correlates, moderated the effects of stress change as well as chronic perceived stress on the negative emotional response to the final exam. More specifically, as the stress change from baseline to exam increases, individuals with shorter PES, lower PEAD or larger Pe amplitudes experienced less negative affect increases in response to exam. Additionally, individuals with shorter PES or larger Pe amplitudes showed no significant relationship between chronic stress and negative affect, whereas individuals with longer PES or smaller Pe amplitudes showed significant positive relationship between chronic stress and negative affect increases in response to exam. The results demonstrated that efficient performance monitoring is a protective factor for stress.

Disentangling the associations between past childhood adversity and psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating roles of specific pandemic stressors and coping strategies

BACKGROUND

Individuals with a history of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) display heightened symptoms of psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, no study has investigated what aspects of the pandemic are of particular concern for this population and ways in which strategies to coping with pandemic stressors may exacerbate their clinical symptomatology.

OBJECTIVE

This study explores what pandemic stressors and coping strategies are associated with ACEs, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during the COVID-19 pandemic, before investigating whether the identified chief stressors and coping styles mediate the effects of ACEs on depression and PTSD.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

1107 Greek adults were sampled from the general population.

METHODS

Participants completed the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire, Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5, Pandemic Stressor Scale, and Brief Cope Scale.

RESULTS

ACEs and depression were both predominantly associated with difficult housing conditions as a stressor (b = 0.079, p < .001 and b = 0.046, p < .001, respectively), whereas PTSD was mainly related to fear of contracting the COVID-19 virus (b = 0.065, p < .001). Self-blame was the main coping strategy associated with both ACEs (b = 0.046, p = .010), depression (b = 0.071, p < .0005), and PTSD (b = 0.088, p < .0005). Difficult housing conditions and self-blame further demonstrated a significant serial mediation effect in the relationship between ACEs with both depression (b = 0.105, 95% CI [0.0607, 0.158]) and PTSD (b = 0.019, 95% CI [0.011, 0.031]).

CONCLUSIONS

The findings indicate that policy makers should identify ways of ameliorating challenging housing conditions, and that service providers should target self-blame in the psychological treatment of adults with ACEs during the COVID-19 pandemic.