Conceptually, both anxiety and depression appear to be characterized by an increased sensitivity to committing errors – consistent with studies that report an increased ERN in relation to anxiety and depression. In fact, Hajcak and colleagues (2004) argued that abnormal ERN amplitude may not be specific to pathological conditions of depression or pathological anxiety, but rather reflect an underlying characteristic that is central to both of these disorders – negative affect (cf., Luu et al., 2000). However, an alternative possibility is that the ERN is increased in all forms of psychopathology. Next, we review evidence that the ERN shows an opposite pattern of effects in disorders characterized by insensitivity to errors and other forms of punishment - namely substance abuse.
