Low socioeconomic status (SES) is negatively associated with children's cognitive and academic performance, leading to long-term educational and economic disparities. In particular, SES is a powerful predictor of executive function (EF), language ability, and academic achievement. Despite extensive research documenting SES-related differences in these domains, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these associations and factors that may mitigate these relationships is limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The relationship between low income and adverse perinatal outcomes, such as low birth weight and developmental delays, is well established making the search for protective factors important. One such factor may be neighbourhood greenspace. This study elucidates the role of urban neighbourhood greenspace in the relationship between income and perinatal outcomes in a nationally representative birth cohort from the UK.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeuropsychopharmacology
November 2024
While a myriad of factors likely contribute to the development of mental illness in young people, the social environment (including early adverse experiences) in concert with neurodevelopmental alterations is undeniably important. A number of influential theories make predictions about how and why neurodevelopmental alterations may mediate or moderate the effects of the social environment on the emergence of mental illness. Here, we discuss current evidence supporting each of these theories.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging
July 2024
Background: Adolescents raised in families with different maternal and paternal parenting combinations exhibit variations in neurocognition and psychopathology; however, whether neural differences exist remains unexplored. This study used a longitudinal twin sample to delineate how different parenting combinations influence adolescent brain structure and to elucidate the genetic contribution.
Methods: A cohort of 216 twins participated in parenting assessments during early adolescence and underwent magnetic resonance imaging scanning during middle adolescence.
There has been significant progress in understanding the effects of childhood poverty on neurocognitive development. This progress has captured the attention of policymakers and promoted progressive policy reform. However, the prevailing emphasis on the harms associated with childhood poverty may have inadvertently perpetuated a deficit-based narrative, focused on the presumed shortcomings of children and families in poverty.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResearch examining the neurobiological mechanisms of resilience has grown rapidly over the past decade. However, there is vast heterogeneity in research study design, methods, and in how resilience is operationalized, making it difficult to gauge what we currently know about resilience biomarkers. This preregistered systematic review aimed to review and synthesize the extant literature to identify neurobiological correlates of resilience to adversity during childhood and adolescence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChildhood adversity increases the risk of developing psychosis, but the biological mechanisms involved are unknown. Disaggregating early adverse experiences into core dimensions of deprivation and threat may help to elucidate these mechanisms. We therefore systematically searched the literature investigating associations between deprivation and threat, and neural, immune and stress hormone systems in individuals on the psychosis spectrum.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Hypothesis: Schizophrenia is highly heritable, with a polygenic effect of many genes conferring risk. Evidence on whether cumulative risk also predicts alterations in brain morphology and function is inconsistent. This systematic review examined evidence for schizophrenia polygenic risk score (sczPRS) associations with commonly used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Parenting behavior is thought to affect child brain development, with implications for mental health. However, longitudinal studies that use whole-brain approaches are lacking. In this study, we investigated associations between parenting behavior, age-related changes in whole-brain functional connectivity, and psychopathology symptoms in children and adolescents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Examining neurobiological mechanisms that may transmit the effects of childhood maltreatment on mental health in youth is crucial for understanding vulnerability to psychopathology. This study investigated associations between childhood maltreatment, adolescent structural brain development, and mental health trajectories into young-adulthood.
Methods: Structural magnetic resonance imaging data was acquired from 144 youth at three time points (age 12, 16, and 18 years).
Socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with children's brain and behavioral development. Several theories propose that early experiences of adversity or low SES can alter the pace of neurodevelopment during childhood and adolescence. These theories make contrasting predictions about whether adverse experiences and low SES are associated with accelerated or delayed neurodevelopment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: School connectedness reflects the quality of students' engagement with peers, teachers, and learning in the school environment. It has attracted attention from both the health and education sectors as a potentially modifiable protective factor for common mental health problems. However, the extent to which school connectedness may prevent the onset of youth depression or anxiety or promote their remission is unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Although different aspects of socioeconomic status (SES) may represent distinct risk factors for poor mental health in children, knowledge of their differential and synergistic associations with the brain is limited.
Objective: To examine the independent associations between distinct SES factors and child brain structure.
Design, Setting, And Participants: We used baseline data from participants aged 9 to 10 years in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study.
Brain structural abnormalities and low educational attainment are consistently associated with major depressive disorder (MDD), yet there has been little research investigating the complex interaction of these factors. Brain structural alterations may represent a vulnerability or differential susceptibility marker, and in the context of low educational attainment, predict MDD. We tested this moderation model in a large multisite sample of 1958 adults with MDD and 2921 controls (aged 18 to 86) from the ENIGMA MDD working group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs the largest longitudinal study of adolescent brain development and behavior to date, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study® has provided immense opportunities for researchers across disciplines since its first data release in 2018. The size and scope of the study also present a number of hurdles, which range from becoming familiar with the study design and data structure to employing rigorous and reproducible analyses. The current paper is intended as a guide for researchers and reviewers working with ABCD data, highlighting the features of the data (and the strengths and limitations therein) as well as relevant analytical and methodological considerations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging
October 2022
Background: A growing body of evidence suggests that parenting behaviors may affect child mental health via altering brain development. There is a scarcity of research, however, that has investigated associations between parenting behavior and brain structure using longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging. This study aimed to investigate associations between parenting behaviors and structural brain development across the transition from childhood to adolescence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging
January 2023
Background: Much work has been dedicated to understanding the effects of adverse home environments on brain development. While the school social and learning environment plays a role in child development, little work has been done to investigate the impact of the school environment on the developing brain. The goal of the present study was to examine associations between the school environment, brain structure and connectivity, and mental health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurosci Biobehav Rev
November 2021
A growing literature has shown associations between socioeconomic disadvantage and neural properties (such as brain structure and function). In this review, we aimed to synthesize findings on the neural correlates of socioeconomic status (SES) in youth samples across neuroimaging modalities. We also aimed to disentangle the effects of different SES measures (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of childhood maltreatment is vital given consistent links with poor mental health. Dimensional models of adversity purport that different types of adversity likely have distinct neurobiological consequences. Adolescence is a key developmental period, during which deviations from normative neurodevelopment may have particular relevance for mental health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly socioeconomic status (SES) has consistently been associated with child health and cognitive outcomes, in addition to alterations in brain function and connectivity. The goal of the present study was to probe the effects of different facets of SES (parent education, income, and neighborhood disadvantage), that likely represent varying aspects of the environment, on resting state functional connectivity (rsFC). We investigated this question in a large sample of 9475 children (aged 9-10 years) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeighborhood disadvantage has consistently been linked to alterations in brain structure; however, positive environmental (e.g., positive parenting) and psychological factors (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging
September 2021
Background: Neighborhood disadvantage has consistently been associated with mental health and cognitive function, in addition to alterations in brain function and connectivity. However, positive environmental influences may buffer these effects. The aim of this study was to examine the association between neighborhood disadvantage and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC), the moderating role of positive parenting and school environment, and relationships between disadvantage-associated rsFC patterns and mental health and cognition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFShame and guilt are moral emotions that play an important role in social functioning. There is limited knowledge about the neural underpinnings of these emotions, particularly in young people. In the current study, 36 healthy females (mean age 18.
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