Impulsivity in adolescents with MDD and non-suicidal self-injury: a multimodal assessment using psychometric, behavioral, and neurophysiological measures

AI Summary

Depressed adolescents, particularly those with NSSI, reported higher impulsivity on BIS-11, notably increased motor impulsivity, versus healthy controls.
Adolescents with NSSI demonstrated impaired behavioural inhibitory control with lower go-trial accuracy, correlating negatively with NSSI severity.
Event related potentials N2 and P3 showed no significant amplitude or latency differences across groups, indicating no neurophysiological distinction.

Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. 2026 May 5. doi: 10.1186/s13034-026-01043-2. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: To investigate multidimensional impulsivity and its neuroelectrophysiological correlates in adolescents with depression and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI).

METHODS: A case-control study was conducted including three groups: depressed adolescents with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI group), depressed adolescents without NSSI (non-NSSI group), and healthy controls (HCs group). The Ottawa Self-Injury Questionnaire was administered to assess NSSI behaviors in depressed participants and to quantify NSSI severity within the NSSI group. Impulsivity was evaluated using a multimodal approach, including the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11), a go/no-go task, and event-related potentials (ERPs), with particular focus on the N2 and P3 components.

RESULTS: Both depressed groups exhibited significantly higher BIS-11 total and subscale scores than HCs, particularly in motor impulsivity (p < 0.05). A significant overall group difference was observed in go trials accuracy among the three groups (p = 0.009). Post hoc analyses with Bonferroni correction showed that the NSSI group had significantly lower go-trial accuracy than the HCs group (p_Bonf < 0.05), whereas no significant differences were observed between the NSSI and non-NSSI groups (p_Bonf > 0.05) or between the non-NSSI and HCs groups (p_Bonf > 0.05). No significant group differences were found in N2 or P3 latency or amplitude across the three groups (all p > 0.05). Correlation analyses revealed that NSSI severity over the past 1, 6, and 12 months was positively correlated with BIS-11 total and motor impulsivity scores (r = 0.198-0.417, all p < 0.001) and negatively correlated with go-task accuracy (r = – 0.248 to – 0.193, all p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION: Depressed adolescents with NSSI exhibited elevated self-reported impulsivity and impaired behavioral inhibitory control, both of which were associated with NSSI severity, whereas no significant neurophysiological differences were observed between depressed adolescents with NSSI and HCs.

PMID:42087155 | DOI:10.1186/s13034-026-01043-2

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