Poster #30 - Neurophysiological Correlates of Parents’ Anxiety

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Behavioral inhibition (BI) is a relatively stable dispositional characteristic reported in early childhood that poses a specific risk for social anxiety disorder anxiety (SAD). Research identifies highly controlling and intrusive parenting behaviors, particularly in the context of novelty or perceived threat, as a key mechanism in the stability of BI and a moderator of risk for anxiety. Parents who are anxious, or who are easily aroused and have difficulty regulating in response to their child’s distress, are prone to ineffective, harsh, and intrusive parenting. However, when parents instead respond with sensitivity and encouragement in anxiety-provoking situations, their children are redirected from negative outcomes.

An important component of understanding determinants of parenting is the neurophysiological processes that support them. The autonomic nervous system, comprised of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS; commonly assessed via Respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS; commonly assessed via skin conductance activity; SCR), modulates the relations between the organism and its environment by regulating behavioral responses across fluctuating demands. The PNS exerts inhibitory signaling from limbic and cortical structures which facilitates the maintenance of homeostasis and the SNS facilitates the rapid mobilization of resources needed to confront or avoid environmental challenges. When children face novelty, challenges, or threats in the environment, parents must draw on these systems to self-regulate in order to adequately respond to the needs of their child. Effective regulation in these contexts helps to shift attention from internal homeostatic needs to external ones, thus supporting adaptive parenting behaviors. Although there is a growing body of research demonstrating that parents’ physiology influences their behaviors, there is a gap in our understanding of the links between parents’ anxiety and their own physiological regulation. Specifically, researchers have not investigated the links between parents’ anxiety and their patterns of autonomic regulation while their children experience novel social interactions.

We addressed these gaps by using baseline data from a multi-component intervention for behaviorally inhibited preschoolers examining the links between parents’ anxiety and their patterns of PNS and SNS regulation while watching their child complete a series of tasks designed to mimic novel social interactions (i.e., clown exposure and mock introductions to same-aged peers interspersed with recovery videos). A series of latent basis growth curve models, which allow for the estimation of nonlinear, dynamic trajectories, revealed that those parents who met the criteria for an anxiety disorder demonstrated higher initial levels of SCR (interceptm = 2.23 vs 2.01) and less dynamic change in RSA across tasks (slopem = -0.49 vs. -0.15) than those parents who were not anxious. These findings suggest that parents who meet the clinical threshold for an anxiety disorder begin the series of tasks with higher levels of SNS arousal, and they display less PNS flexibility, characterized by less suppression and flatter recovery while watching their child complete the social stress tasks. Findings suggest that patterns of autonomic regulation provide insight into risk for anxiety, and heightened SNS and reduced PNS flexibility may indicate an individual’s reduced capacity to actively cope with external demands.

Authors

• Nicholas James Wagner, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Nila Shakiba, Boston University

• Kathy Sem, Boston University

• Hong N. T. Bui, University of Maryland - College Park

• Danielle Novick, University of Maryland - College Park

• Christina Danko

• Andrea Chronis-Tuscano, University of Maryland, College Park

• Kenneth H Rubin, University of Maryland - College Park