Distinct Associations of Threat and Deprivation With Changes in Affective Control during Adolescence: A Longitudinal Population‐Based Study

Changes in Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression During Transition to Early Adolescence and Their Links With Executive Function Difficulties.

INTRODUCTION Frequency of emotion regulation strategy use undergoes changes during early adolescence. Executive functions are often proposed as foundational for successful emotion regulation, yet longitudinal links between executive functioning and the development of emotion regulation strategies remain underexplored. METHODS The present study included 1532 children from ages 9 to 15 (Mage_baseline = 11.03, SD = 1.15, 49.3% male) and 1157 mothers from Croatia. Children reported on their use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, while mothers provided reports of executive functioning difficulties across three-waves over 2 years. Children were divided into four age cohorts. Cohort-sequential latent growth models were used to estimate developmental trajectories of emotion regulation strategies. Additionally, random-intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to explore both within- and between-person associations between emotion regulation strategies and executive functioning difficulties. RESULTS Self-reported use of cognitive reappraisal showed a linear decline across all cohorts at similar rates, though a single common trajectory was not fully supported due to intercept differences. Expressive suppression showed more complex results, but it seems to have increased between approximately 11 and 14 years, though this pattern was not consistent across all cohorts and common trajectory also was not supported due to intercept differences. Executive function difficulties did not consistently predict changes in either strategy across cohorts. In the three oldest cohorts, reappraisal was unrelated to EF difficulties, while suppression showed a complex pattern: trait-level suppression was positively associated with shifting, working memory, and inhibition difficulties, and within-level suppression and working memory were bidirectionally negatively linked. CONCLUSIONS The use of emotion regulation strategies changes in early adolescence, with reappraisal declining and suppression varying by age, and executive function difficulties showing a complex, strategy-specific relationship.

Dimensions of Early-Life Adversity and Attention Biases in Childhood and Adolescence: A Systematic Review.

Trajectories of self-regulation in childhood and reward processing in adolescence.

Poor self-regulation and aberrant reward processing are key mechanisms contributing to several adverse outcomes in young people, including mental health problems, academic failure, and risky behaviours. Importantly, poor self-regulation may be a cause of aberrant reward processing, but most of the evidence about their association is cross-sectional or limited to adults and clinical samples of children. Therefore, understanding how the development of self-regulation in childhood may be associated with reward processing in adolescence in the general population is crucial. We used longitudinal data from 13,240 (49.7% females, 83.4% White) participants of the Millennium Cohort Study, a UK nationally-representative birth cohort. Reward processing (ages 11 and 14) was measured using the Cambridge Gambling Task, while self-regulation was assessed at ages 3, 5 and 7 with the Child Social Behaviour Questionnaire. Parallel-process latent growth curve models adjusted for confounding showed that greater early emotional dysregulation predicted more delay aversion and less risk adjustment, while increasing independence self-regulation over time was associated with less deliberation time and greater quality of decision-making in adolescence. Findings suggest that early emotional dysregulation and increasing independence self-regulation may increase and decrease, respectively, risk for poorer decision-making in adolescence, emphasising potential avenues for early intervention.

Longitudinal associations between binge drinking and changes in behavioral and neural threat reactivity in youth.

Problematic alcohol use frequently emerges during adolescence and young adulthood, yet few objective markers reliably capture risk or track early changes in drinking behavior. Reactivity to uncertain threat (U-threat) has been identified as a potential neurobiological risk factor for alcohol misuse; however, no study has examined within-subjects changes in reactivity to U-threat as a function of drinking frequency. Thus, it remains unclear whether reactivity to U-threat reflects a stable vulnerability marker or a dynamic process that tracks within-person changes in alcohol use. To address this gap, youth ages 16-19 (N = 134) in the early stages of alcohol involvement completed startle and neuroimaging versions of the No-Predictable-Unpredictable (NPU) threat task at baseline and 6-month follow-up. Participants were classified into three groups based on changes in binge drinking frequency (decreased, stable, increased). Repeated-measures ANOVAs examined group × time effects on startle potentiation and activation of the anterior insula (aINS) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) during U-threat. Results revealed a significant group × time interaction for startle: youth who increased binge drinking showed heightened startle reactivity to U-threat over time, whereas those who decreased or maintained drinking showed no change. No significant interactions emerged for aINS or dACC activation. Findings indicate that behavioral reactivity to U-threat is associated with short-term changes in binge drinking, suggesting that startle potentiation may reflect a within-person correlate of risk. These results highlight exaggerated U-threat reactivity as a promising psychophysiological target for early detection and intervention.

Exploring Longitudinal Associations Among Error-Related Negativity, Perception of Interpersonal Events, and Internalizing Symptoms in Female Adolescents

Heightened error-related negativity (ERN), a neural marker of error sensitivity and trait defensive reactivity, and maladaptive appraisals of interpersonal events have each been linked to adolescent internalizing symptoms. Few studies have evaluated a developmental mechanistic model to test whether enhanced ERN might prospectively predict more negative perceptions of peer and family events, and if through this pathway, internalizing symptoms increase. The present study tested this hypothesis in a sample of 79 female adolescents (ages 11–16 years old), of whom 36 adolescents had mothers with histories of internalizing disorders. At baseline, the participants’ ERN was measured through electroencephalogram recordings while completing a computerized flanker task. At baseline and 6-month follow-up, participants completed self-report measures of adolescent perceptions of family and peer events and internalizing symptoms. Analyses were conducted within a structural equation modeling framework to capitalize on the full dataset. Three competing models (correlated outcomes, negative perceptions of interpersonal events mediation, reverse internalizing symptoms mediation) were tested and relative model fit comparisons were made to determine which model fit the data better. We found partial support for our hypotheses. For the family events models, there was stronger evidence that baseline ERN predicted increases in internalizing symptoms via increases in negative perceptions of family events. However, for the peer events models, there was stronger evidence that internalizing symptoms mediated the prospective associations between baseline ERN and increases in negative perceptions of peer events. Future research should consider reciprocal effects among these pathways and how these processes could be targeted by preventive interventions.

Dissociation as a marker of emotion dysregulation: An examination in adolescent psychiatric inpatients using ecological momentary assessment.

BACKGROUND Dissociation is a transdiagnostic symptom and hypothesized to serve as a short-term regulatory mechanism in response to emotional stress. The present study examined the momentary dynamics between dissociation, negative affect, and cortisol in the day-to-day lives of adolescent psychiatric inpatients. METHODS Forty-eight adolescents (mean age: 15.85 years, SD: 1.15, 81% female) were recruited from psychiatric inpatient units. Following a diagnostic baseline assessment, participants completed twelve signal-contingent ecological momentary assessments per day over five consecutive days, each separated by one hour, reporting on dissociation and negative affect. Salivary cortisol was sampled concurrently. Data were analysed using Residual Dynamic Structural Equation Modelling. RESULTS No significant cross-lagged effects between dissociation and negative affect emerged. However, a significant contemporaneous association indicated that these variables co-occurred (st.est. = 0.236, 95%-CI: 0.191-0.280). Neither emotion regulation difficulties, borderline personality disorder nor childhood trauma assessed at baseline significantly moderated the cross-lagged or contemporaneous effects. A small cross-lagged effect of the cortisol × dissociation interaction on negative affect emerged (st.est. = -0.056, 95%CI: -0.081 to -0.028), indicating that higher levels of dissociation in combination with elevated cortisol levels predicted lower subsequent negative affect. DISCUSSION These findings provide partial support for theoretical conceptualization of dissociation as a marker for emotion dysregulation and underscore the need for studies employing combined psychological and biological assessments with higher sample frequencies than a one-hour interval to more precisely capture the short-lived temporal dynamics among dissociation, affect, and endocrine stress responses.