The neurobehavioral effects of anxiety and depression
on functional systems of the right posterior and left
frontal regions were measured in two groups of 9 to 11 year
old boys to determine whether children exhibit processing
and motor deficits similar to those found in previous
studies of depressed adults. Individuals with a prior
history of anxiety, depression, learning disability or
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder were eliminated
from participation. One group was classified as high in
depression and anxiety based on cut-off scores on the Child
Depression Inventory, and the Trait scale of the State-Trait
Anxiety Inventory for Children, respectively. The other
group was classified as low in depression and anxiety using
the same measures. Group performance was compared on
measures of auditory identification of affective prosody
(happy, sad, angry, and neutral), hemispheric lateralization
of affective and propositional speech, grip strength, verbal
fluency, problem solving, and alternation and sequencing. As predicted, anxious-depressed subjects performed less
accurately on the identification of happy, sad, and angry
affective prosody in congruent and incongruent conditions,
were relatively less lateralized on both dichotic listening
and grip strength measures, Further, anxious depressed
children were less proficient than non-anxious, nondepressed
children on measures of frontal executive
functioning, including verbal fluency, problem-solving, and
alternation, but not on measures of sequencing.
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