Neural responses to conditioned threat during extinction predict concurrent and future anxiety in late adolescence
Abstract
Adolescence is a critical developmental period characterised by heightened anxiety and increased risk for anxiety disorders, potentially reflecting developmental differences in threat learning and extinction processes. Although previous research suggests that early adolescents show enhanced visual event-related potential (ERP) responses to conditioned threat cues, it remains unclear whether these neural patterns persist into late adolescence or predict anxiety vulnerability. This study examined neural responses to conditioned threat cues during threat acquisition and extinction in late adolescence and investigated their association with current and future anxiety. Sixty-eight late adolescents (aged 18-19) completed a Pavlovian threat conditioning task in which a conditioned stimulus (CS+) was paired with an aversive sound on 50% of trials, whereas a second cue (CS-) was never reinforced. An immediate extinction phase followed, during which both cues were presented without reinforcement. Behavioural and physiological measures indicated successful threat acquisition and extinction. ERP analyses revealed no evidence of differential conditioning in P1 amplitudes. In contrast, N1 amplitudes were significantly larger to the CS- than the CS+ across both acquisition and extinction. The late positive potential (LPP) showed the opposite pattern, with larger amplitudes to the CS+ than the CS- during both phases. Logistic regression analyses controlling for depressive symptoms and gender indicated that P1 and N1 responses were unrelated to current or future anxiety caseness. Whereas greater LPP differentiation (CS+ > CS-) during extinction was associated with increased odds of belonging to the high-anxiety group both concurrently and six months later. Together, these findings suggest that differences between high- and low-anxiety adolescents are reflected in later neural responses to conditioned threat during extinction, but not in early visual sensory-attentional processing. Extinction-related LPP responses may therefore represent a promising neural marker of current and future anxiety in late adolescence.
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BibTeX
@misc{ulusoy2026neural,
title = {{Neural responses to conditioned threat during extinction predict concurrent and future anxiety in late adolescence}},
author = {Kubra Ulusoy and Liat Levita},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/j74wu_v4},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/j74wu_v4/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Neural responses to conditioned threat during extinction predict concurrent and future anxiety in late adolescence
AU - Kubra Ulusoy
AU - Liat Levita
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/09
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/j74wu_v4
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/j74wu_v4/
AB - Adolescence is a critical developmental period characterised by heightened anxiety and increased risk for anxiety disorders, potentially reflecting developmental differences in threat learning and extinction processes. Although previous research suggests that early adolescents show enhanced visual event-related potential (ERP) responses to conditioned threat cues, it remains unclear whether these neural patterns persist into late adolescence or predict anxiety vulnerability. This study examined neural responses to conditioned threat cues during threat acquisition and extinction in late adolescence and investigated their association with current and future anxiety. Sixty-eight late adolescents (aged 18-19) completed a Pavlovian threat conditioning task in which a conditioned stimulus (CS+) was paired with an aversive sound on 50% of trials, whereas a second cue (CS-) was never reinforced. An immediate extinction phase followed, during which both cues were presented without reinforcement. Behavioural and physiological measures indicated successful threat acquisition and extinction. ERP analyses revealed no evidence of differential conditioning in P1 amplitudes. In contrast, N1 amplitudes were significantly larger to the CS- than the CS+ across both acquisition and extinction. The late positive potential (LPP) showed the opposite pattern, with larger amplitudes to the CS+ than the CS- during both phases. Logistic regression analyses controlling for depressive symptoms and gender indicated that P1 and N1 responses were unrelated to current or future anxiety caseness. Whereas greater LPP differentiation (CS+ > CS-) during extinction was associated with increased odds of belonging to the high-anxiety group both concurrently and six months later. Together, these findings suggest that differences between high- and low-anxiety adolescents are reflected in later neural responses to conditioned threat during extinction, but not in early visual sensory-attentional processing. Extinction-related LPP responses may therefore represent a promising neural marker of current and future anxiety in late adolescence.
ER -