Modeling Relations Between Event-Related Potential Factors and Broader Versus Narrower Dimensions of Externalizing Psychopathology

The organization of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) model provides unique opportunities to evaluate whether neural risk measures operate as indicators of broader latent liabilities (e.g., externalizing proneness) or narrower expressions (e.g., antisociality and alcohol abuse). Following this approach, the current study recruited a sample of 182 participants (54% female) who completed measures of externalizing psychopathology (also internalizing) and associated traits. Participants also completed three tasks (Flanker-No Threat, Flanker-Threat, and Go/No-Go tasks) with event-related potential (ERP) measurement. Three variants of two research domain criteria (RDoC)-based neurophysiological indicators-P3 and error-related negativity (ERN)-were extracted from these tasks and used to model two latent ERP factors. Scores on these two ERP factors independently predicted externalizing factor scores when accounting for their covariance with sex-suggesting distinct neural processes contributing to the broad externalizing factor. No predictive relation with the broad internalizing factor was found for either ERP factor. Analyses at the finer-grained level revealed no unique predictive relations of either ERP factor with any specific externalizing symptom variable when accounting for the broad externalizing factor, indicating that ERN and P3 index general liability for problems in this spectrum. Overall, this study provides new insights about neural processes in externalizing psychopathology at broader and narrower levels of the HiTOP hierarchy. General Scientific Summary The Hierarchical Taxonomy Model of Psychopathology argues that some etiological factors might operate at broader levels of the psychopathological spectrum, conferring general risk for clinical problems. Our results show that error-related negativity (ERN) and P3 responses are indicators of distinct neural processes and that both account for externalizing proneness.