(PS3-C66) Pediatric Psychopathology’s Associations with Inhibiroty Control, Anxiety Symptomology, and Childhood Opportunity

The resources and conditions of a child’s neighborhood (childhood opportunity) impacts neural and behavioral development. Inhibitory control is a core facet of executive function that enables individuals to ignore irrelevant stimuli, inhibit non-adaptive motor responses, and regulate emotions. We studied associations among childhood opportunity, inhibitory control, and psychopathology in a transdiagnostic sample.

The study involved 117 participants (mean age=12.5+/-2.9 years), including 89 with a psychiatric diagnosis (e.g., ADHD, Anxiety Disorder, and/or Major Depressive Disorder) and 28 were healthy volunteers (HV). The sample was 67.5% white, 78.6% non-Hispanic/Latinx, and 55.6% males. We used Childhood Opportunity Index (COI) scores and zip-codes to assess participants’ neighborhoods. Inhibitory control was operationalized on the Flanker task as the flanker effect (incongruent – congruent trials) for accuracy and reaction time (RT). We ran four separate linear mixed (LM) models examining effects of participant group (i.e., patients vs. HV) and COI on flanker effects. Models for accuracy (n=109) or RT (n=103) were run twice, once with overall COI and once with the three separate COI domains: socioeconomic (SE), educational (ED), and health environment (HE). Additionally, further analyses to be presented will examine levels of anxiety symptoms in the patient group using the Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Disorders (SCARED).   

The interaction of p</span>articipant group and overall COI predicted the accuracy flanker effect, F(1,105)=4.92, p=.029. Follow-up analysis showed a difference in HV versus patients on how overall COI influenced accuracy, t(105)=2.22, p=.029. In HV, higher overall COI was associated with lower accuracy, indicating poorer performance. However, in patients, higher overall COI was associated with higher accuracy, indicating better performance. A second model with all three COI demains showed no significant effects. The RT models for either overall COI or the three domains of COI revealed no significant effects of participant group or COI on flanker effect RT. Further analyses will incorporate SCARED scores to measure dimensional symptom levels within the patient group.  

COI and psychopathology may be important predictors of inhibitory control. Specifically, a mental health diagnosis and a child’s neighborhood may interact to influence flanker accuracy. In patients, a greater flanker effect on accuracy was associated with greater COI. This was expected, as resources typically support better cognitive development. In HV, a decreased flanker effect on accuracy was associated with increased COI, suggesting that greater childhood opportunity is connected to worse inhibitory control. This paradoxical finding requires replication; it could be a Type I error, given the small, unrepresentative sample. Furthermore, there was a limited range in COI scores in the HV group that could impact on the finding (z-score min: 0.003; max: 0.078). Overall, this study reflects the importance of considering COI when studying child psychopathology. Further research using COI can provide preventative and intervention implications for reducing psychopathology in children and creating healthier communities.