Sex moderates the relationship between worry and performance monitoring brain activity in undergraduates

Research suggests that abnormal performance-monitoring contributes to the etiology and maintenance of anxious pathology. Moreover, the anxiety–performance monitoring relationship appears to be specific to the worry dimension of anxiety. Given that anxiety (and worry in particular) is twice as prevalent in women as men, and most studies to date have employed small samples which are underpowered to detect sex-differences, it is possible that sex may be an important moderator of the worry–performance-monitoring relationship. No studies have directly compared the worry–performance-monitoring relationship between men and women, however. In the current study, we extended our recent work showing a unique relationship between worry and performance monitoring brain potentials in female undergraduates by comparing this relationship to that between worry and performance-monitoring brain potentials in male participants. Seventy-nine female and 70 male undergraduates from an ongoing study of anxiety and performance monitoring performed a letter-flanker task while their brain activity was recorded. Results revealed that worry was associated with exaggerated performance-monitoring, as indexed by increased error-related negativity/correct-response negativity, in female, but not male undergraduates. These findings suggest that the functional relationship between worry and performance-monitoring is sex-specific and have implications for understanding the role of performance-monitoring in the development and maintenance of anxiety. Specifically, linking the worry–performance-monitoring relationship to other female-specific biopsychosocial factors represents an important direction for future research.

► We examined the effect of sex on the worry–performance-monitoring relationship.
► High trait-worry was related to an enhanced ERN in female participants.
► This relationship was near-zero in male participants.
► ERN amplitudes did not differ between men and women.