697 - Effects of Cognitive Fatigue on State Anxiety in Children and Adolescents

Poster Number: 697
Publication Number: 697.308

Alexa R. Moore, National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Washington, DC, United States; Megan Parker, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, United States; Lucy K. Loch, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD, United States; Hannah Haynes, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD, United States; Bess Bloomer, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States; Jennifer Te-Vazquez, National Institute of Health, Graham, NC, United States; Nasreen A. Moursi, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Rockville, MD, United States; Sheila M Brady, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States; Marian Tanofsky-Kraff, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, United States; Nichole R.. Kelly, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, United States; Jack A. Yanovski, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD, United States

Background: According to the cognitive capacity model, individuals have difficulty self-regulating and modulating affective states when mental resources become taxed. Thus, cognitive fatigue may exacerbate negative affect, especially for youth with higher anxiety and depressive symptoms. However, this hypothesis has been insufficiently tested.

Objective: To investigate whether cognitive fatigue acutely worsens state-level anxiety in youth and explore whether trait-level anxiety and depressive symptoms moderate this association.

Design/Methods: Boys and girls (8-17y) completed two conditions: a two-hour cognitive fatigue condition (a computerized Attention Network Test) and a control condition (watching movies) on separate days within a 31-day period, with condition order randomized. Before and after the conditions, participants rated their state anxiety, using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC)-state. Trait-level anxiety and depressive symptoms were self-reported on the STAIC-trait and the Children’s Depression Inventory, respectively. A mixed-model ANCOVA was conducted with timepoint (pre-condition and post-condition) and experimental condition (fatigue vs. control) as within-subject factors. Two additional models were run with anxiety and depressive symptoms as separate between-subjects factors. Models were adjusted for age, sex, height, race/ethnicity, percent fat mass (by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry), condition order, and days between visits.

Results: Among 90 youth (M age = 12.5< ![if !msEquation] >< ![if !vml] >< ![endif] >< ![endif] >2.5y, M BMI% = 58.572< ![if !msEquation] >< ![if !vml] >< ![endif] >< ![endif] >29.49, 50% Female, 50% non-Hispanic White), findings indicated that participants experienced significant increases in their state anxiety following completion of the fatigue but not the control condition (p=.007, η_p² =.04). Further, participants with higher anxiety (p < .001) and depressive (p < .001) symptoms experienced greater increases in state anxiety, regardless of condition. However, anxiety (p=.64) and depressive (p=.16) symptoms did not function as significant moderators.

Conclusion(s): These results provide experimental evidence that cognitively fatiguing conditions lead to increases in state anxiety in youth, but mood symptoms did not moderate this pathway. Future research should identify ways to reduce the effects of cognitive fatigue on negative affect, potentially by encouraging rest after completing a cognitively fatiguing task, and testing other moderators of this pathway, such as emotion regulation capability, sleep, and stress.