Attentional Impairments and Neural Compensation in Adolescents with High Social Anxiety Traits: A Combined ERP and Functional Connectivity Study

Adolescence is a key period of significant physiological and social development, during which social anxiety symptoms often emerge and can impact academic and social functioning. Social anxiety disorder (SAD) involves heightened sensitivity to social cues and impaired social information processing, potentially contributing to persistent anxiety symptoms. However, research exploring the neural mechanisms of social information processing in adolescents with social anxiety remains limited. The investigation employed a facial dot-probe paradigm combined with EEG measurements to assess differences in attentional processing and neurophysiological activity between two adolescent groups: a high-social-anxiety (HSA) group (N = 27) and a low-social-anxiety (LSA) group (N = 18). Results showed (1) there was a significant reduction in P2 amplitudes in the HSA group compared to the LSA group. (2) A significant negative correlation between the disengagement index (DI) and P2 amplitude was found. (3) Weaker functional connectivity in the theta band was found in the HSA group. (4) In the graph theory analysis, the HSA group exhibited significantly higher node efficiency across various frequency bands compared to the LSA group. The findings suggest that socially anxious adolescents have impaired attentional control toward social cues. This difficulty may reinforce their anxiety symptoms over time.