P3 amplitude reductions are associated with shared variance between internalizing and externalizing psychopathology

P3 amplitude reductions, commonly elicited in oddball paradigms, have been associated with both internalizing (e.g., depression and anxiety) and externalizing problems (e.g., substance use, aggression, and impulsivity). Recent factor analytic models have focused on the shared variance between internalizing and externalizing problems as a potentially important separable psychopathology construct (a general psychopathology factor, or p‐factor). To assess neurophysiological markers of this shared variance, we examined P3 amplitude to target and novel stimuli in an undergraduate sample with a range of internalizing and externalizing problems. Participants (N = 125) completed a rotated heads visual oddball paradigm, with IAPS pictures serving as infrequent novel stimuli. Results replicated P3 amplitude reduction relative to both target and novel stimuli separately for internalizing and externalizing problems, and found that the shared variance across internalizing and externalizing was significantly related to lower P3 amplitude to novels, targets, and a factor score of target and novel P3 measures. The present results are consistent with the interpretation that a general or shared problem behavior factor accounts for much of the associations between reduced P3 amplitude and internalizing and externalizing problems.There is a need for biological measures that can index emerging models of the shared variance between internalizing and externalizing problems (cf. general psychopathology factor, or p‐factor), to provide approaches for assessing the biological systems underlying these models. The current study found support for the idea that a general or shared problem behavior factor contributes to P3 amplitude reductions observed separately for internalizing and externalizing behaviors. This supports an inference that some biological systems are sensitive to processes associated with a shared problem behavior factor.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155993/1/psyp13618_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155993/2/psyp13618.pd