Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Dev Sci. 2013 Sep;16(5):641-52. doi: 10.1111/desc.12096. Epub 2013 Jul 30.
Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) predicts executive function performance and measures of prefrontal cortical function, but little is known about its anatomical correlates. Structural MRI and demographic data from a sample of 283 healthy children from the NIH MRI Study of Normal Brain Development were used to investigate the relationship between SES and prefrontal cortical thickness. Specifically, we assessed the association between two principal measures of childhood SES, family income and parental education, and gray matter thickness in specific subregions of prefrontal cortex and on the asymmetry of these areas. After correcting for multiple comparisons and controlling for potentially confounding variables, parental education significantly predicted cortical thickness in the right anterior cingulate gyrus and left superior frontal gyrus. These results suggest that brain structure in frontal regions may provide a meaningful link between SES and cognitive function among healthy, typically developing children.
儿童时期的社会经济地位（SES）可以预测执行功能表现和前额皮质功能的测量，但关于其与解剖结构的关联知之甚少。本研究使用来自 NIH 正常大脑发育 MRI 研究的 283 名健康儿童的结构 MRI 和人口统计学数据，来探究 SES 与前额皮质厚度之间的关系。具体来说，我们评估了两个主要的儿童 SES 指标（家庭收入和父母教育程度）与前额皮质特定区域的灰质厚度以及这些区域的不对称性之间的关联。在进行多次比较校正并控制潜在混杂变量后，父母教育程度显著预测了右侧前扣带回和左侧额上回的皮质厚度。这些结果表明，健康儿童的前额区域的大脑结构可能为 SES 与认知功能之间提供了有意义的联系。
