Emergence and sequalae of attention biases to threat across the first three years of life

Clinical anxiety affects around 20% of individuals during their lifetime (Burris et al., 2019). The tendency to focus more on threatening rather than non-threatening stimuli, known as attention bias towards threat, has been linked to the onset and persistence of anxiety in both children and adults (Bar-Haim et al., 2007; Suway et al., 2013). This bias appears early in infancy (Peltola et al., 2013) and continues into early childhood (Nakagawa & Sukigara, 2012), yet little is known about the social, cognitive and biological factors driving this behaviour.

This PhD project aims to explore how biological traits and early experiences influence the development of attention bias towards threat and how this may contribute to anxiety.

The project will: (1) Investigate the relations between individual difference factors and attention bias towards threat over the first three years of life; (2) Identify the neural mechanisms underlying attentional engagement and disengagement from threat; and (3) Explore patterns of brain activity linked to different developmental paths of attention bias, particularly those that increase the risk of developing anxiety.

The research findings will improve understanding of how attention bias towards threat and its underlying brain processes might lead to anxiety, contributing to a growing literature that aims to significantly improve early detection of children at risk for anxiety disorders. This knowledge can support the development of early intervention strategies to reduce the long-term impact of anxiety disorders in children.

Burris, J. L., Buss, K., LoBue, V., Pérez-Edgar, K., & Field, A. P. (2019). Biased attention to threat and anxiety: On taking a developmental approach. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2043808719860717

Bar-Haim, Y., Lamy, D., Pergamin, L., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van Ijzendoorn, M. H. (2007). Threat-related attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: A meta-analytic study. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.1

Nakagawa, A., & Sukigara, M. (2012). Difficulty in disengaging from threat and temperamental negative affectivity in early life: A longitudinal study of infants aged 12-36 months. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 8(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-8-40

Peltola, M. J., Hietanen, J. K., Forssman, L., & Leppänen, J. M. (2013). The emergence and stability of the attentional bias to fearful faces in infancy. Infancy, 18(6), 905-926. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12013

Suway, J. G., White, L. K., Vanderwert, R. E., Bar-Haim, Y., Pine, D. S., & Fox, N. A. (2013). Modification of Threat-Processing in Non-Anxious Individuals: A Preliminary Behavioral and ERP Study. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 44(3), 285-292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2012.11.006