{"doi":"10.1111/jcpp.70096","title":"Smartphone language and resting‐state <scp>EEG</scp> indicators of self‐focused attention prospectively predict major depressive disorder risk in adolescents","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Central to major depressive disorder (MDD) onset and maintenance is maladaptive self-focused attention, which can be reliably indexed by greater: (a) usage of first-person singular pronouns (e.g., I) in natural language and (b) alpha oscillations in resting-state EEG. Integrating these largely parallel bodies of research, the present study sought to explicate the associations between, and prospective predictive utility of, linguistic and neural indicators of self-focused attention in adolescents with remitted MDD over 12 months. METHODS: At baseline, 126 adolescents (ages 13-18) with (n = 66) and without (n = 60) remitted MDD completed resting-state EEG. Retrospective interviews determined the occurrence of major depressive episodes (MDEs) during the follow-up period. A total of ~2.3 million messages were passively acquired from adolescents' smartphones, on which the proportion of first-person singular pronouns was derived. RESULTS: During the 12 months, 29 (23.0%) participants developed an MDE (28 remitted MDD, 1 control). Cox regression showed that while greater usage of first-person singular pronouns prior to MDE increased the risk for MDE (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.02, p < .001), greater resting-state alpha power at baseline decreased the risk for MDE (HR = 0.78, p = .001). Moreover, greater alpha power predicted subsequent first-person singular pronoun usage (β = 0.17, p = .004). Mediation analysis indicated a marginal suppression effect (bootstrapped indirect effect p < .10), such that accounting for first-person singular pronoun usage amplified the association between alpha power and MDE risk. CONCLUSIONS: Findings highlight functionally distinct alpha mechanisms and provide support for smartphone-based first-person singular pronoun usage as a neurobehavioral risk factor and a potentially promising intervention target for adolescent MDD.","journal":"Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry","year":2025,"id":537555,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9441,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1382807,"name":"Nayoung Kim","orcid":"0009-0000-0394-0741","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1049569,"name":"Esha Trivedi","orcid":"0009-0003-5658-5546","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1423783,"name":"Sarah E. Sarkas","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1423358,"name":"Madeline M. McGregor","orcid":"0009-0001-1072-7399","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1050147,"name":"Aishwarya Sritharan","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":368088,"name":"Katherine Durham","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240697,"name":"Ivan Alekseichuk","orcid":"0000-0002-2205-4910","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":371319,"name":"Allison M. Letkiewicz","orcid":"0000-0002-6812-8735","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249472,"name":"Vijay A. Mittal","orcid":"0000-0001-9017-5119","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":421973,"name":"David Pagliaccio","orcid":"0000-0002-1214-1965","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":393230,"name":"Nicholas B. Allen","orcid":"0000-0002-1086-6639","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367040,"name":"Randy P. Auerbach","orcid":"0000-0003-2319-4744","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":246812,"name":"Stewart A. Shankman","orcid":"0000-0002-8097-4483","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1032015,"name":"Lilian Y. Li","orcid":"0000-0001-7507-3632","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:52:12.997494Z","pmid":"41399007","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}