Biomarkers Research in Anxiety for Validation and Efficacy

Parents of children ages 3 to 5 will complete the SPAS and parents of 6 year old children will complete the SCAS. These are questionnaires designed to assess the severity of anxiety symptoms in preschool-aged and school-aged children. Scores range from 0-136 with higher scores indicating greater anxiety.

The BASC-3 measures adaptive and problem behaviors in the community and home setting. It has a strong foundation in theory and research. Scores range from 20-120 with higher scores indicating greater anxiety.

The PARS is a checklist which the independent evaluating clinician completes based upon parent interview. The measure is designed to assess the severity of anxiety symptoms associated with social phobia, separation anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. Scores range from 0-25 with higher scores indicating greater anxiety.

The CGI-A assesses severity and improvement of anxiety using a 7-point Likert scale (from "very much better" to "very much worse"). Based on information collected from the KSADSE, PARS, and Spence, the clinician will rate the global severity of the child's global anxiety and of each individual anxiety disorder. Scores range from 0-8 with higher scores indicating greater anxiety.

To assess changes in a child's ability to manage specific anxiety-provoking situations, parents rate up to six specific anxiety-provoking situations for their child. Scores range from 6-42 with lower scores indicating lower ability to cope with anxiety.

To assess the extent to which child behavior limits participation in activities typical of families with young children, parents will complete this measure. Scores range from 0-38 with higher scores indicating greater impact of child behavior on family functioning.

Continuous EEG will be collected while children watch non-social videos for a 4 minute baseline period and again after a brief challenge task (working memory, conversation about feelings). The dependent variable will be EEG alpha power asymmetry (i.e., difference in alpha power between the left and right frontal recording sites)

ERPs will be collected while children view digitized and standardized photos of neutral, fearful, angry, and happy expressions (50 per condition). Each trial will consist of a 100ms baseline, 500ms face stimulus, 1200ms post-stimulus period, and variable inter-trial interval of 500-1000ms. The dependent variable will be the ERP mean amplitude at the late positive potential measured between 700-1200ms over anterior leads.

EDR will be collected during a task includes acquisition trials that pair a conditioned stimulus (CS+; a geometric shape) with an aversive tone (i.e., unconditioned stimulus). The second conditioned stimulus (CS-; a different geometric shape) is presented alone. The CS+ and CS- are counterbalanced across children and will be unique at each time point. The Pavlovian Conditioning and Extinction Task will be conducted to measure the rate of EDR habituation during the extinction period. In addition, EDR levels will be explored during a series of challenges in different domains paired with non-challenging tasks that control for the psychomotor demands of the challenge task.

RSA will be collected during a validated protocol for assessing autonomic nervous system reactivity in children ages 3 to 6. The protocol includes a series of challenges in different domains paired with non-challenging tasks that control for the psychomotor demands of the challenge task. RSA will also be explored during the extinction period of a conditioning task.