The interplay of rumination and error-related brain activity in the prospective prediction of depressive symptoms among youth.

Introduction: Rumination is a risk factor for the development of depression among adolescents. However, not all at-risk youth develop depression, suggesting the presence of factors that moderate risk patterns. Error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential indexing cognitive error processing, has been associated with both rumination and internalizing symptoms. However, it remains unknown whether ERN interacts with rumination to predict youth internalizing symptoms and if the interaction effects are specific to depression and anxiety symptoms. The current study examined the interplay of ERN and rumination in the 12-month prospective prediction of anxiety and depressive symptoms in a sample of youth.

Method: Participants included 60 youth (ages 9-16, 88% female) enrolled in a study on the intergenerational transmission of depression. At baseline, youth completed a self-report measure of rumination and a Flanker error monitoring task during electroencephalography to measure ERN. Youth completed self-report measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms at baseline and 12-month follow-up.

Results: Results revealed a two-way interaction between baseline child ERN and rumination in the prediction of 12-month depressive symptoms. Follow-up analysis indicated that greater baseline rumination predicted increases in depressive symptoms at 12-months for youth exhibiting a more enhanced ERN, but not for youth demonstrating a blunted ERN. This effect remained after covarying for child age, race, sex, and maternal depression history. Results revealed no significant interactive effect between child ERN and rumination in predicting 12-month anxiety symptoms.

Discussion: These findings highlight the unique interplay of rumination and neural error processing in the prospective prediction of youth depressive symptoms. If replicated, these results would suggest that rumination-targeted prevention programs may be particularly effective for reducing depressive symptoms among youth exhibiting an enhanced ERN.