Fear learning and generalization in youth with early-stage transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms and the impact of acute exercise.

Background: Adolescence and early adulthood represent critical periods for the emergence of psychiatric symptoms, often spanning multiple symptom dimensions. Alterations in fear learning and generalization are implicated in anxiety-related disorders, yet research on these processes in youth with early-stage transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms remains limited.

Methods: This study investigated fear learning and generalization in youth aged 16-24 years with transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms (anxiety, depressive, and psychotic), as indexed by US expectancy ratings. Additionally, considering the modulatory impact of exercise on memory processes, we explored the effects of a 10-minute moderate-intensity exercise intervention using a randomized between-subject design.

Results: Contrary to hypotheses, the symptom group did not show impaired threat-safety discrimination or overgeneralization of fear. However, they exhibited elevated overall threat expectancy during generalization, suggesting that a bias in threat expectancy could represent an early vulnerability in threat processing. Dimensional analyses point to subtle symptom-specific differences in generalization patterns, underscoring the importance of modeling continuous symptom severity alongside group-based comparisons. No significant effects of acute exercise on fear acquisition or generalization were observed.

Conclusion: These findings highlight early alterations in threat processing in youth with early-stage psychiatric symptoms. Future research should investigate symptom-specific patterns in fear generalization, track their longitudinal development, and refine exercise interventions to effectively modulate fear processing.