Neural correlates of error processing: Linking adverse childhood experience to adolescent inhibitory control and internalising and externalising symptoms

This study explored the understudied neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the relationships between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), inhibitory control processes, and internalising and externalising symptoms in adolescents aged 14 to 17 years (n = 50). To that end, Electroencephalography (EEG) data were collected as participants performed a Go/No-go task. Inhibitory control was assessed through error processing, measured behaviourally by commission error rate (frequency of incorrect ”Go” responses when withholding was required) and neurally by error-related negativity (ERN), a frontal event-related potential (ERP) linked to error-monitoring processes. Greater exposure to ACEs was associated with elevated internalising, but not externalising, symptoms. ACEs were also related to larger ERN amplitudes, in the absence of differences in behavioural response inhibition as indexed by commission error rates. In turn, enhanced ERN amplitudes were linked to higher internalising symptoms, although ERN did not mediate the relationship between ACEs and internalising outcomes. Together, this pattern indicates that heightened neural error monitoring may function as a correlated marker of vulnerability following ACE exposure rather than a direct mechanistic pathway. Overall, these findings demonstrate that heightened neural error monitoring in adolescents exposed to ACEs is linked to internalising symptoms independently of behavioural inhibition task performance. This dissociation underscores the potential value of neural markers of error processing for identifying adolescents at risk for internalising difficulties following early adversity.