Susan Warren, MD202-994-0033

psyslw@gwumc.edu

Early Risk Factors for Anxiety Disorders

• Neurophysiological risk factors including startle, EEG and sleep

• Family relationship factors including the

attachment relationship

Infants of Anxious Mothers

• In previous research studied 4 month and 14 month infants of mothers with panic disorder and normal controls

• Found that infants of mothers with panic disorder had elevated baseline salivary cortisol and more disturbed sleep

• Mothers with panic disorder showed less sensitivity towards their infants

Infants of Anxious Mothers

• Recruited more than 200 mothers with anxiety disorders and normal controls

• Infants participate at 4 months, 14 months and 2 years of age

• Examining child neurophysiology, temperament, and parenting behaviors that predict later child diagnoses

Anxious Toddlers

• In previous research studied diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders in toddlers

• Toddlers were mostly 2-years-old• Modifications to adult social phobia

criteria showed good convergent and discriminant validity but modifications to adult generalized anxiety disorder did not

Anxious Toddlers

• Recruited more than 300 toddlers from the general population, some with anxiety disorders

• Toddlers participate at 2 , 3 and 5 years of age

• Examining child neurophysiology, temperament, and parenting behaviors that predict later child diagnoses

Improving Psychiatric Diagnostic Criteria

• Developing new statistical procedures to test psychiatric diagnostic criteria

• Will use these new procedures to better define psychiatric diagnoses for young children and adults