Preschoolers of mothers with affective and anxiety disorders show impairments in cognitive inhibition during a chimeric animal stroop.

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Date
2013-01
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Abstract
Aims: To determine whether maternal affective and anxiety disorders are associated with cognitive inhibitory deficits in four-year-old children utilizing a chimeric animal stroop task, a childhood adaptation of the traditional stroop task. Study Design: Blinded Cross-Sectional Study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, data collected from June 2009 to October 2010. Methodology: Four-year-olds of mothers with (n=29) and without (n=31) a history of affective or anxiety disorders completed a chimeric animal version of the stroop task. Incongruent, neutral, and congruent stimuli were presented over three trial blocks. Mean reaction time and response accuracy were the primary dependent measures. Results: The increase in the number of incorrect responses to incongruent versus congruent or neutral stimuli was larger for offspring of a mother with a history of an affective or anxiety disorder than without (t=2.4, P=.02); there was no significant main effect of maternal psychiatric illness (F(1, 58)=0.9, P=.34) or a stimulus type by maternal illness (F(1 , 58)=1.1, P=.30) interaction on reaction time. Conclusion: The association between maternal affective and anxiety disorders and cognitive inhibitory deficit is already identifiable by four years of age.
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Keywords
Preschool, executive function, depression, anxiety, attention, stroop
Citation
Calvin Elizabeth A, Hunter Sharon K, Ross Randal G. Preschoolers of mothers with affective and anxiety disorders show impairments in cognitive inhibition during a chimeric animal stroop. International Neuropsychiatric Disease Journal. 2013 Jan-Jun; 1(1): 1-15.